Sultan Al Qassemi tops index of most connected tweeters in UAE and Middle East

In second place in the UAE is the Prime Minister and Vice President HH Sheik Mohammed closely followed by UAE-based Armenian-American journalist Lara Setrakian.

The study, being launched in Abu Dhabi by Portland, the international strategic communications consultancy, establishes the most comprehensive map yet produced of connectivity between influencers across the region.

Portland has analysed the influencers in each country and then ranked them in terms of how many other key tweeters in the Middle East follow them.

The study reveals that:

Sultan Al Qassemi is the region's most connected Twitter-user.
Second place overall is held by the region's most connected woman, Dima Khatib, a Syrian-born Palestinian journalist currently based in Qatar.
In third place overall is Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google executive turned political commentator.
Over a quarter of the top 50 places are held by women.
Over one quarter of the top 50 are government officials and members of Royal families.
One in three of the top 50 are political activists.
Bahrain, Syria and Lebanon were the most commonly-used hashtags among the most connected.
Politics and current affairs were the main topics, with four in five of the top users tweeting about politics more than any other issue.
Egypt's Twitter users have the most connections across the region, followed closely by those in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Among survey respondents, over half mainly follow people in the Middle East, while just one in five mostly follow Twitter users outside the region.

Mark Flanagan, Portland's Partner for Digital Communications, said, "While journalists and commentators are very active in the Middle East Twittersphere, it is interesting to see more politicians and government officials on Twitter, gaining influence and engaging with citizens and the media. It is clear that Twitter is seen as a valuable and increasingly mainstream platform."

Using data collected between July and September 2012, Portland mapped the 500 most connected Twitter users in the Middle East and tracked their conversations. As a result, Portland has created the first ever comprehensive map of the most connected tweeters and countries.