As the Greek Presidency enters the final month of its mandate, levels of public involvement via social media networks give us a reason to celebrate: the Presidency’s Twitter account has met with exceptional success, as @gr2014eu is the most followed EU Presidency account thus far, with almost 12,500 followers.

The account was launched on 15 November, 2013 and had attained 5,000 followers by the beginning of the Greek semester. By 26 February, numbers had doubled, reaching the landmark figure of 10,000 followers, while it continues to attract new followers daily, even as the Greek semester enters its final month.

Followers aside, additional statistical data highlight the account’s remarkable reach: 97% of our tweets are retweeted, with an average of 7 retweets per tweet, and 75% of our tweets favourited (3 times per tweet), while the #gr2014eu hashtag has repeatedly become Top hashtag of the Week.

These statistics convey a very hopeful message not just for the Greek Presidency, but for public interest and involvement in European Union affairs in general: in times of growing euroscepticism, an EU institutional account has managed to extend its reach and engage a larger audience, thus generating a much needed interest in the institutional reality of the European Union.

Since the account’s launch, we have posted almost 2,500 tweets. Our aim is to run an account that manages to be equally informative, reliable, interesting and appealing. For this reason, we consistently try to provide our audience with more than just dry news on the Presidency’s activities: we seek to give our audience a feeling of virtually being there, with extensive use of multimedia. Furthermore, we try to link Presidency issues with a glimpse of real-life EU and real-life Greece in particular; we try to showcase the environment in which we as Europeans live and work, and the ways in which the EU affects our everyday realities.

No part of this success however would have been possible had we not built on the work of our predecessors and learnt from their experience; and thus we wish our Italian counterparts who’ll pick up from where we leave off our very best for a better, stronger and even more successful performance.

As we draw to a close, the Twitter team thanks its social media friends and looks forward to an equally productive final month: After all, together we sail further!