F

ollowing his success on the popular micro-blogging site Twitter, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced on Tuesday that he would soon launch a Facebook account.

While standing in front of his office, waiting for a visit by Constitutional Court justices, Yudhoyono spoke with reporters: 'Next month, God willing, I will join Facebook.'

Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said the launch of Yudhoyono's page would take place 'in the near future'.

'The President is aware that a significant number of our people are active on Facebook,' he said. 'Facebook is a little different from Twitter. Some issues cannot be mediated by Twitter,' he added.

When asked if the President would have a regular Facebook account or a fan page, Julian asked, 'What is that? I can't tell you yet because we are still finalizing the plan.'

Yudhoyono earlier made his presence felt on social media by joining Twitter last April.

Less than three months after its official launch, Yudhoyono's Twitter account, @SBYudhoyono, had garnered 2,324,000 followers as of Tuesday. He was quick to enter the leaderboard of state leaders' Twitter accounts, proving more popular than presidents and prime ministers of major countries who had been on Twitter for far longer, such as Australia's Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) and India's Manmohan Singh (@PMOIndia).