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Analyzing The Top 100 Twitter Users

December 17, 2008 by Pablo Palatnik

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. That has been the new social media site of 2008 if you have been keeping up with the buzz out there. Twitter has become an online phenomenon for online users and a HUGE tool for online marketers. Companies are using and finding ways to use Twitter and implementing in their online marketing strategy.

I'm not going to analyze every single Twitter user but lets look at some and what they do.

#1 – Barack Obama: The #1 Twitter user is Barack Obama. We all know how essential web 2.0 was to his presidential campaign and Twitter has been a very big component getting about 150k followers on Twitter.

#2- Kevin Rose: The founder of Digg is second on the list of Twitter users. People seem to really follow people who have big websites or projects, especially those young ones. He now has over 80k followers.

#3- CNN Breaking News: A media source using another social media source. Great idea for a news organization to use Twitter to distribute news through online and mobile since Twitter does have a mobile app.

#4- Leo Laporte: Leo Laporte is a journalist specializing in technology coverage on radio, TV, and the Internet. He has around 67k followers.

#5- Jason Calicanis: Jason Calicanis is one of the most outspoken and talked about entrepenuers in the technology sector, most notably for his current project of the Mahalo search engine.

So, those are the top 5 Twitter users with the most followers for the moment. You can see the full list at Twitterholic.com.

Many in the top 100 are technology entrepenuers such as Guy Kawasaki, #12, which is a venture capitalist. #6 is Robert Scoble, tech enthusiast and video podcast evangelist. #15 is Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, yes, some people are really addicted to that website.

The media is also trying to capitalize on the popularity of Twitter. CNNs Rich Sanchez is currently ranked #13 with over 36k followers. If you watch Rick on CNN sometimes, he mentions Twitter quite a bit. The New York Times is ranked #55 with over 15k followers but that number should grow as the times finds new ways to engage their users through Twitter and leverages it better. Rachel Maddow from CNBC ranks #52 with over 16k users. I watch her show and havent seen a mention of Twitter. Other media names on the list include NPR News, The Onion, and BNO News.

What companies are using Twitter?

Woot.com, a company advertising ONE PRODUCT A DAY is using Twitter to tell followers about the one special deal each day, very cool concept if you havent check it out yet. They currently have over 20k users. Starbucks is using Twitter probably to tell followers about special deals and promotions they have going on, they currently have over 17k followers. Can you see how your website, company can benefit from Twitter? I can.

Read the post I wrote, Build Your Business Via Twitter.

Are celebrities using Twitter?

Where there is social interaction online, you will also find celebrities doing their marketing of their “brand’. Shaquille O’Neal is ranked # 44 with over 18k followers. Britney Spears is ranked # 90 with over 11k followers.

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