That made my curious about what Twitter accounts have the most followers. The top 10 are [1]:
1. Barack Obama, 118 million.
2. Justin Bieber, 111.
3. Katy Perry, 108.
4. Rihanna, 96.
5. Taylor Swift, 86.
6. Christiano Ronoldy, 84.
7. Lady Gaga, 81.
8. Donald Trump, 80.
9. Ellen DeGeneres, 80.
10. Ariana Grande, 74.
The next highest politican is Indian Prime Minister Modi, at #17 with 57 million. The Office of the Prime Minister of India is at #42, with 35 million. Obama, Trump, and Modi are the only politicians in the top 50.
The only individuals in the top 50 who are not those three or entertainers (counting athletes as entertainers) are Bill Gates at #22 with 50 million and Elon Musk at 47 with 34 million.
Obama has a huge advantage over Trump and Modi. When you make a new account, Twitter normally suggests following Obama. That gets him followers for zero effort. On the other hand, new accounts that immediately follow a bunch of people like Trump get hit with random annoying account restrictions that might cause a person to hesitate or even delete their account.
Followers are largely irrelevant, here. Trump's tweets are cited on a weekly basis by hundreds of publications globally. More people view trump tweets not-on-Twitter than on the platform.
Obama has 118M followers, whereas Trump's tweets have reach on the magnitude of billions of people. Had Obama been a Tweeter-In-Chief like Trump while he was president, his tweets would've had a similar reach.
1. Barack Obama, 118 million.
2. Justin Bieber, 111.
3. Katy Perry, 108.
4. Rihanna, 96.
5. Taylor Swift, 86.
6. Christiano Ronoldy, 84.
7. Lady Gaga, 81.
8. Donald Trump, 80.
9. Ellen DeGeneres, 80.
10. Ariana Grande, 74.
The next highest politican is Indian Prime Minister Modi, at #17 with 57 million. The Office of the Prime Minister of India is at #42, with 35 million. Obama, Trump, and Modi are the only politicians in the top 50.
The only individuals in the top 50 who are not those three or entertainers (counting athletes as entertainers) are Bill Gates at #22 with 50 million and Elon Musk at 47 with 34 million.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_Twitter_...