Boards
Credit: Dan Jackman/WENN.com
The “real” followers are real people who use Twitter. The fake ones were bought by PR companies. People who sell these fake accounts to celebs can make as much as $800 a day!
Here are some of the accounts they decided to crack down on.
34% of @ladygaga followers are fake
31% of @justinbieber followers are fake
32% of @katyperry followers are fake
32% of @espn followers are fake
33% of @britneyspears followers are fake
What does all of this add up to in real numbers? (SSU did the math for us!) Out of Lady Gaga’s 28,839,110 only 8,074,950 are good. Meaning they’re actual people on Twitter. Out of Justin Bieber’s 27,176,769 followers only 7,881,263 are good. Out of Katy Perry’s 25,678,355 followers only 6,676,372 are good. That’s a huge difference from how these celebs present themselves.
Why does this matter? It gives them an unfair advantage. When celebrities fake fans, they’re faking it to attract more fans, which makes it harder for other talented people with maybe 10,000 followers to reach a broader audience. (What struggling artist can afford to BUY FANS?) If you’re looking for music, you’re not going to listen to every single song that was ever made–that’s absurd. What you might do is look at who is already popular, look at Top 40 or what’s hot on iTunes. The people on the top of those lists are the most visible, which makes us more likely to see their work, embrace it, and keep them on top longer. You’ll probably hear the Billboard’s #1 single before the Billboard’s 1000th, right? Think of it this way, no one uses Myspace or Friendster anymore simply because they’re not popular.
On the flip side, 7 million or 8 million or 100,000 followers is a BIG DEAL. It’s a little weird that these particularly huge stars deem it necessary to cheat. Even if you so much as think something negative about Justin Bieber one billion of his fans are ready with ammo to tell you he is actually awesome. There is no doubt that these stars are adored by many people, so why fake it?
What do you think about faking Twitter followers? NBD or totally cheating? Let us know in the comments!
The maths on here is incorrect. I’ll use Lady Gaga’s stats as my example.
1. You’ve got the proportions way out- there’s no way 8, 074, 950 is 66% of 28, 839, 110, which it would be if 34% were fake accounts. At first glance it looks like you’ve just mixed up the fake and the real accounts but…
2. The numbers don’t add up to make the percentages you’ve given. the number you’ve given is actually about 30% (still pretty high
)
34% of 28, 839, 110 is actually 9, 805, 297.
So…assuming the percentages are right…
Lady Gaga : 9, 805, 297 fake followers
Justin Bieber : 8, 424, 798 fake followers
Katy Perry : 8, 217, 074 fake followers
You’re correct. SSU determined the amount of “good” users as the amount of users with active accounts, which means inactive users (people who randomly created a Twitter account and never used it) are also excluded, along with the fake accounts.
I follow people on twitter that I like IF they don’t have many followers [like Katy Perry's "Followers]
If they do I don’t see the point in following them unless I want to hear all about what they ate for dinner