According to Reuters, Croatia’s newly elected President, Ivo Josipovic, is currently overwhelmed with friend requests on Facebook. Apparently the celebrity President has not yet figured out the advantage of using a Facebook Page over a personal profile. The new President told state radio “I have 5,000 friends, which is the maximum allowed on Facebook. I also have another 7,000 waiting so I don’t know how we’ll work that out.”
Apparently state leaders abroad are more interested in being popular through friend requests rather that Facebook Pages where Michael Jackson and Barack Obama currently rule, each with over 10 million fans. While it appears that someone has taken it upon themselves to set up a Facebook Page for the President, the current page only has around 3,700 fans.
Rather than positioning himself as a relatively unknown global figure, it makes a lot more sense to go on the radio and complain about the challenges of having the maximum number of Facebook friends allowed. Facebook currently has approximately 22 percent market saturation in Croatia, with just under 1 million users. Back in December of 2008 we covered a number of protests including one in Croatia which was organized completely on Facebook.
While there don’t appear to be too many protestors voicing their dissatisfaction with Josipovic, he clearly doesn’t have a massive following on the site just yet. For the time being, the President can spend his time worrying about how to handle the deluge of friend requests rather than solving more important issues, like the country’s impending accession into the European Union.
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Well he needs to learn how to make a Facebook group now doesnt he…
Comment by Facebook Tag Me — January 13, 2010 @ 2:30 pm
haha work it out Josipovic!
Comment by Veronica Reynolds — January 13, 2010 @ 5:01 pm
I'm sorry guys, but Josipovic DOES have an official Facebook page and it currently has over 25,000 fans. I'm from Croatia so I can confirm it.
It's just that he also has a private profile and doesn't want to ignore all these friend requests.
http://www.facebook.com/ivojosipovicsdp
Comment by Kristina Bogovic — January 13, 2010 @ 11:29 pm
You guys should also check Facebook Statistics in Croatia, it has grown a lot, and today it is on its record:
http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook...
Comment by Jan Facebakers — January 14, 2010 @ 4:41 am
Nothing to see here, move along…
Comment by Mile Jerkovi? — January 14, 2010 @ 7:31 am
I think it's good for these public figures to have a personal profile in addition to a page. A profile is reciprocation – a friend for a friend. Just because he mentions that he has more friend requests than he can handle on Facebook doesn't mean he's ignoring other important issues!
Comment by Jake — January 14, 2010 @ 8:29 am
I don't like him much, generally, but a thumbs up for the efforts anyway
Greeting from a neighboring country
)
Comment by Ivan — January 16, 2010 @ 6:12 pm