Who is the Queen of Twitter?

     In a world where big numbers mean big business, the size of a celebrity's Twitter following is of great interest to fans and advertisers alike. Nearly four years after joining the social networking site, Lady Gaga is the first Twitter user to reach 20 million followers mark on twitter, and up to now, she got 29,685,558 followers!!! Gaga even dubbed herself the “Queen of Twitter,” and has retained the title ever since. She also called those follower and all her fans "Little Monster".

    I am among those over 20 million followers and after closely scrutiny of her tweets for one week, I found that unlike some celebrity and politicians’ Twitters, which are largely maintained by their management team, Gaga seems personally maintain her Twitter account and regularly uses it to interact with fans, share original pictures and make announcements. For example, Lady Gaga announces her new album tittle via twitter: “@ladygaga make sure when writing about my new album/project ARTPOP that you CAPITALIZE the title, *its all in the details* good morning twitter!” The reveal of album title through twitter has received warm responses from those "Little Monsters" on Twitter. Also, once Gaga has posted a picture of herself naked, reclining on an armchair, for her nearly 30 million followers on Twitter. The “Bad Romance” singer is seen hugging her knees to her chest in the snap. Although this tweet was very controversial on the Internet, it arrested many eyes.

    Bur recently, a research about Lady Gaga’s twitter has aroused heated discussions. Some people questioned how many Twitter followers does Lady Gaga really have? Most people with Twitter accounts will have been bombarded with indecipherable messages apparently sent by “spambots” who don't exist. A British Company has developed a tool to expose the fraudulent accounts that inflate follower numbers. And this new social media tool that verifies whether followers are real or not shows that more than half of Lady Gaga's near 29 million followers aren't actually people.

    Beside Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, who owns 13,991,183 followers is also an active Twitter user. Since joining Twitter in 2009, the “Queen of Talk” has played nice with her nearly 14 million followers. Although the amount of her followers is not as many as Lady Gaga’s, she wrote 4323 tweets since she created her twitter, much more than Lady Gaga’s tweets which is 1948. By closely scrutinizing her tweets for a week, I found she actively interacted with all her fans and frequently responded to her followers’ questions. It seems that Oprah Winfrey is a more real, practical and interactive Twitter user.

    

    But Oprah Winfrey also met with some troubles with this social media platform, and finally our “Queen of Talk” defended herself on twitter! Once Oprah Winfrey showed that she is not one to be messed with by “arguing” with one of her followers. At first, Oprah was confronted by one of her followers, @Awalkdatalk, claiming that she does not give back to the ghettos in America. “@Oprah when are u going 2 give back 2 the ghettos in america?” he tweeted. Oprah then snapped back “@awalkdatalk when are u? I’ve put 500 African American men thru college. And u sir?” Oprah’s response received thousands of retweets and within moments became a viral sensation. "Yes Oprah, yes," one person tweeted. "Preach. We're all on your side." Another person questioned if "Awalkdatalk" was attempting to get famous off of the popular media proprietor. "Why is this dude trying to get famous off of a heated debate between him and Oprah," the person questioned. Actually, for the record, Oprah is the largest individual donor to the all-male HBCU Morehouse College since 1989. During the Oprah Winfrey Show farewell spectacular in May 2011, two hundred Morehouse students that had benefited from Oprah’s generosity marched with candles and surrounded her on stage. This “battle” is a shinning example of how celebrity using public opinion and social media to defend their own images.

    Overall, it was those celebrity’s participation that made Twitter a unique and charming platform. It is hard to say who is the “queen” of “king” of Twitter, because both the size of followings and the amount of tweets can’t decide anything. Whatever for promotion or for fun, I believe the most important factor of celebrity’s twitter is the real and sincere engagement with their audience！