Twitter’s Most Popular Users Breaking From The Pack

Twitter’s most popular users are on a roll, according to new statistics from Rapleaf, accumulating followers at a very rapid pace. The interesting thing is that less popular users, who should theoretically have less trouble doubling or tripling their audience’s size, aren’t keeping up.

Rapleaf monitored the accounts of 40,000 active Twitter users over the course of a few months. The company’s Michael Hsu then wrote today, "The most followed users gained followers at a faster rate than less popular users, contributing to a growing ‘popularity gap.’" Also, "Users in the top 0.1% have around 5x as many followers as users in the top 1% and about 40x as many followers as users in the top 10%."

Here’s his and Rapleaf’s proof:

This might be a sign that celebrities are taking over Twitter. People would just join the service in order to see what individuals like Shaq and Samuel Halpern are saying, in other words, rather than to sort of look around and branch out as early adopters did.

Or not. We’d be interested to hear any other explanations you can come up with. And the good news is that, if you use Twitter and only have 140 or so followers, it looks like you’re still in very respectable territory.

There are 14 Comments. Add Yours.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Toni Anicic
September 4, 2009 at 3:40 am

I believe this is mainly caused by enormous amount of spam accounts that auto follow everyone they can find in hope they follow them back. Celebrities are obviously among the first they encounter.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Tim Cohn
September 4, 2009 at 10:13 am

Its the network effect.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Michael G. Hurston
September 4, 2009 at 4:09 pm

People who are popular, like celebrities, are going to have a lot of followers, and it’s natural that as more people join whatever social media outlet they are on that they will follow them first.

For example, out of the X amount of new Twitter users a day, who are they most likely to follow, Ashton Kutcher or @mghurston and my portfolio updates? It’s not exactly rocket science here, that popular individuals get more of an online following than little known individuals.

But it’s not just celebrities in the movie/sports type of setting. It’s any type of significantly popular individual such as Darren Rowse who has a lot of online followers. Chances are most people who join Twitter and are interested in learning about blogging and Twitter in general, will probably follow him first.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Tracker Mo
September 4, 2009 at 9:03 pm

Part of this issue is due to the way Twitter is set up.

Except for the efforts of those who “re-tweet” everyone (i.e., mentioning all the people that follow them in a long roll-call), few are even aware of who else is following their own followers.

As a result, in order to gain followers you have to advertise outside of Twitter… not good. One method is to sign up with one of those services to gain generic followers. This is also not good since at least 2/3′s will not be interested in you and will drop out.

Twitter needs to address this in some meaningful way. They need to allow members to sort through their friends and followers.

Mo

- Like (0) Dislike (0)
  Mark
  September 6, 2009 at 9:12 am
  
  I agree! Yet some sort of glitch also exists if you follow those celebrities or whomever has thousands upon thousands of followers. For if they do not follow you, you are limited to following 2000 thereabouts.
  
  - Like (0) Dislike (0)
    Gatlinburg
    September 6, 2009 at 12:44 pm
    
    Twitter lets you follow up to 2000 people regardless of how many people follow you back. Once you are following 2000 people you can not follow anymore until your follower’s amount is within 10% of the number you are following. Example: if you have 2000 followers you can follow 2200 max. 2000 +10%(200) = 2200. The celebrities follow only a few people in most cases but have a million plus followers so the limits imposed on average Twitter users(non celebrities) do not effect them. So to be able to crossover the limit and follow more than 2000 people you will need approximately 1820 followers.
    
Like (0) Dislike (0)
Chris
September 6, 2009 at 9:47 am

There also seems to be a twitter pack instinct. People are much more likely to follow you if you already have a lot of followers, I guess partly because this helps grow their extended network of tweeters who might potentially start following them. I noticed that as soon as I broke the 300 barrier I was up to 1200 in no time without much effort at all.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Reeta Luthra
September 6, 2009 at 10:25 am

It was much easier to find new people to follow when twitter showed conversations between people in the twitter stream. Since they stopped showing @replies (unless you’re following both parties), it’s become an active undertaking to go looking for new people to follow.

Celebs are always going to easier to find because you already know of them.

- Like (0) Dislike (0)
  Eric Miltsch
  September 6, 2009 at 3:02 pm
  
  @Reeta –
  
  You can overcome this by placing a period before your @reply…everyone will see your reply whether they follow that person or not.
  
  Pass it on…
  
  http://twitter.com/emiltsch
  
Like (0) Dislike (0)
Philippe Gadeyne
September 6, 2009 at 10:46 am

A number of services have popped up that will drive up the number of your followers very quickly. As with any systems, companies will try to monetize it and find ways to go a round the intent to reach the holly graal, in social media it’s followers. Twitter is one of the main target for these companies but we recently have seen the same trend with Facebook

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Official Safety and Security
September 6, 2009 at 1:24 pm

I use Twitter mainly to socially market my safety and security web site but I find many of those who use Twitter to keep up with celebrities are following me to take advantage of my updates too. It’s all good. Thanks, Doug.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Twitter Carpet Flooring
September 6, 2009 at 5:58 pm

I think the rapid increase rates in followers on the larger accounts is the pack mentality and related to celebrity status. It’s human nature to be a part of something everyone else is doing.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Top10Traffic
September 6, 2009 at 7:35 pm

The popularity gap you’re reporting on is caused by the fact that celebrities have access to broadcast media, and others don’t.

When Ashton Kutcher told Oprah’s audience about his twitter account, he became and has remained the #1 most-followed account.

Like (0) Dislike (0)
Home Solar Power Systems
September 8, 2009 at 3:39 am

Twitter is set up in such a way that any one can follow a person without their permission. Famous personalities are the first target, they will be easily followed by many. Twitter has to do something for this.