BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is one of the most prominent people on Twitter in the Middle East, according to the pan-Arab newspaper Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat.

With 63,206 Twitter followers, Hariri, the only Lebanese mentioned in the report, came in eighth place.

The recently published list puts the Future Movement leader in the company of well-established Twitter users, such as Jordan’s Queen Rania, who topped the list with nearly 1.8 million followers, Egyptian activist and IT executive Wael Ghonim, coming in second, with nearly 3 million followers and Queen Noor – the former queen of Jordan – in third place, with nearly 124,000 followers.

This report comes less than two months after Hariri started engaging in live Twitter sessions with his followers, discussing everything from sensitive political issues – such as violence in Syria and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon – to his personal daily life in Saudi Arabia, where he currently resides.

“Well it’s about time to make this more up close and personal, you’ll be hearing from me more often and I’ll be around as much as I can,” the former prime minister tweeted in his first live Twitter session on Nov. 5.

This was followed by at least a week of nearly daily live Twitter sessions. Since then, Hariri has engaged with his followers nearly daily.

Ayman Itani, a Beirut-based social media consultant, said that assuming the public figures were the ones really posting messages on their Twitter accounts, “this gives them a way to have further insights. Usually they get reports from aides or other sources of information.”

Speaking to The Daily Star Monday, Itani said: “It is a good way for [public figures] to get feedback.”

Over the past several years, Twitter has become an important political tool, particularly in the Middle East, where ordinary citizens have used the micro-blogging site to break news and organize demonstrations. Some politicians have also embraced Twitter, allowing their constituents unprecedented personal contact with them.