PR and the Social Web

Lady Gaga is the first entity to gain 10 million followers on Twitter.  Although teen idol Justin Bieber is gaining followers at a faster rate, 23,000 a day against Gaga’s measly 22,000, he still has around 300k to go before he crosses the line.

It’s only two years since the biggest account on twitter had just a million people hanging on to actor Ashton Kutcher’s ever 140 character missive. His @aplusk account narrowly beat CNN breaking news @cnnbrk.  Before that @BarackObama had been the number one account.  Gaga’s milestone confirms a number of observations:

• On-line and off-line popularity are pretty much the same thing.
• Twitter is a broadcast channel.  It is not the only thing it does but 10 million is pretty broad (even if they’re not all following every utterance).
• Twitter is also a highly effective news feed – lots of traditional news media have large follower numbers. Create a list and you have a customisable news channnel.
• Twitter is now firmly part of the celebrity PR portfolio.

@JustinBieber is gaining on @LadyGaga but her twitter account was the first to hit 10 million followers and at the current rate it may be several months before the teenage Canadian crooner captures the twitter topspot.