US President's visit to Helsinki attracts international media attention

A media analysis prepared by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs examined the extent to which President Biden's visit to Helsinki in July attracted attention in the international media and the extent to which the visit was discussed in social media. The analysis only covers foreign media.

During the review period of 1–17 July 2023, online media articles mentioning Biden's visit to Helsinki attracted more than 1.8 billion impressions. Such articles were published in 140 countries, most of them in the United States, Germany and Great Britain. For the most part, the attention was neutral in tone.

More than 2,400 of the published articles mentioned Finland in the title. The most widely shared articles focused, for example, on President Biden's actions in Finland, the US–Nordic Leaders’ Summit, statements President Biden made at the press conference, and Finland's changed international status as a new NATO member.

“The attention that the visit received in international media met our expectations. Finland has a positive country image, but raising awareness of our country remains a key objective. This kind of media visibility is helpful,” says  Mikko Koivumaa, Director of Communications at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

President Biden's visit to Helsinki was also actively discussed in social media. During the review period, approximately 33,500 posts mentioning Biden's visit to Helsinki were published on the most popular social media platforms. Posts were published in 143 countries, most in the United States.

Social media updates also mainly dealt with President Biden. Negative attention was higher in social media than in online media.
 

The analysis was carried out using the Meltwater media monitoring tool. The analysis took into account all articles in the international media that mentioned Biden's visit to Helsinki. The same search criteria were also used to search for social media posts.

The estimated number of impressions is based on the websites’ combined potential reach. Potential reach is a figure based on the number of unique monthly visitors to a website. It is generally estimated that approximately 1/40 of the followers of a given online media have seen the content in question.

Read more on the website of the Office of the President of the Republic:   President Niinistö hosts U.S.-Nordic Leaders’ Summit in Helsinki: “We met our Nordic family”.