Influence of political leaders on sustainable development goals - insights from twitter

PurposeThe importance and criticality of sustainable development goals is witnessed by 195 member countries. For its full-fledged adoption and implementation, it needs to be understood by masses and political leaders are critical agents those engage diverse communities through social media such as twitter. Therefore, in this study focuses on how political leaders can influence the sustainable development goals through Twitter.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the social media conversations of political leaders on Twitter. Social media analytics methods such as sentiment mining, topic modelling and content analysis-based methods have been used.FindingsThe findings indicate that most political leaders are primarily discussing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) “partnership for goals” and “peace, justice and strong institutions”. Many other goals such as “clean water and sanitation”, “life below water”, “zero hunger”, “no poverty” and “educational quality” are not being focused on.Research limitations/implicationsThis study offers implications in terms of collective decision making and the role of policy makers towards the goals of promoting SDGs. The authors highlight how political leaders need to involve key stakeholders in this journey.Originality/valueThis study scores and provides a cohort-specific prioritization of the leadership within these countries with regard to SDGs, which could be beneficial to the society.