Indian army tops popularity charts on Facebook

Pips foreign govt bodies including CIA, FBI, NASA and even the Pakistani military

Leaving a host of foreign government organisations behind, including the CIA, FBI, NASA and even the Pakistani military, the Indian army has once again topped the popularity charts on social networking site Facebook.

For the second time in as many months, the Indian Army's Facebook page has topped the People Talking About That (PTAT) ranking for Facebook pages.

"It is big for the army's social media. Only two months ago, we had topped for the first time. It also proves that we have genuine likes registered for our page," Army sources said.

PTAT ranking is based on the analysis of the number of people talking about or on a particular page.

And it is not just the Facebook page that is doing well. The official website of the Indian Army gets as many as 2.5 million hits every week.

The army first entered Facebook on June 1, 2013 and has since then garnered 2.9 million likes.

Interestingly, on Facebook, both India and Pakistan are at war, having blocked each other's accounts through Geo location.

This means that a person from Pakistan cannot access Indian army's Facebook page and vice versa.

The Twitter handle of the Indian army has 447 thousand followers, sources said, adding "social media is an important element of army's outreach programme.