This post is an update of March 2011’s list of African leaders with a Facebook presence. The numbers and a couple of links have been adjusted. Stats from December 2010 and July 2010 can also be found.

One year ago, the Internet was buzzing with news of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s social media successes. Six months ago, the focus of African social media shifted to revolutionary themes. Similar sentiments continue as of June.

A solid number of nations, most notably Swaziland and Zambia, have seen extraordinary Facebook growth in the past 3 months (assuming the trends regarding leader page fan numbers reflects a general trend of Facebook adoption within the leader’s nation). The challenge is determining what share of fans of these pages are diasporans. Similar to last update, little has changed in terms of which nations’ leaders have official Facebook pages. Updates this month include:

• Botswana: found unofficial page for Ian Khama (was community page)
• Cote d’Ivoire: Not surprisingly, Laurent Gbagbo’s page was deleted. An unofficial page for Alassane Ouattara now exists
• Egypt: Hosni Mubarak’s page still exists
• Guinea-Bissau: Malam Bacai Sanha’s unofficial page has been removed
• Liberia: Ellen Sirleaf Johnson’s unofficial page has been removed
• Namibia: Hifikepunye Pohama page changed from group to community
• Niger: found unofficial page for Salou Djibo (was community page)
• South Africa: The unofficial page for Jacob Zuma has been deleted
• Sudan: Found community page for Oman Hassan al-Bashir (was group)
• Tunisia: An unofficial page now exists for Fouad Mebazaa (was community page)

Growth trends & countries of interest:

• Median fan growth rate: 23%
• A handful of nations have seen no change or a decrease in fan base. Most of these were the result of removed pages.
• Of leader pages with greater than 10,000 fans, Ghana and Rwanda showed greatest 3-month growth (24% and 23%, respectively)
• Unsure why fan numbers for Sao Tome & Principe, Burundi, Angola, Cape Verde recently dropped
• Flat trends in Central African Republic, Chad, Seychelles, Sierra Leone
• The page for Libya’s Col. Gaddafi serves as a source of news updates and has grown substantially
• Yoweri Museveni’s official fan page begins with a Welcome tab urging users to visit the NRM site
• Mauritania and Somalia now have 4 followers of their respective leaders’ community pages
• In order of sheer fan base there is no change in order: Nigeria (579k), Kenya (89k), Morocco (81k), Zimbabwe (63k), Tanzania (30k)

The list as of June 19, 2011:

The above table lists all top African heads of state (usually President) and provides a link to the one or two most popular Facebook pages, groups, or profiles for a given leader. The final column shows how many users are interested in the particular leader. Loose definitions of the page-types:

• Official page: A page run by the actual leader.
• Public profile: A presidential account with a public wall and information about the leader.
• Private profile: An seemingly real account without a public wall or information about the leader.
• Unofficial page: A user-created page that serves as the leader.
• Group: A user-created group dedicated to a leader.
• Community page: A placeholder courtesy of Wikipedia for cases when no user-generated page exists.