Katy Perry and Kanye West: top artists on Twitter as platform celebrates 10th anniversary

Monday marks a major anniversary for messaging platform Twitter. 10 years ago today, co-founder (and now CEO of both Twitter and online payment service Square) Jack Dorsey sent the very first twt (at the time the company was still called Twttr), and nothing was ever the same again. As the network has exploded in popularity over the past decade, it has become a major marketing platform also for musicians. Some might wonder whether if put to a popular vote we would have elected Katy Perry over Barack Obama for president, considering that she carries about 13 million more followers than POTUS. Given that artist popularity tends to follow the rule of proportionate growth (the more followers you have, the more you’ll add) the top ten list of artists doesn’t exactly change drastically year over year. These 10 artists currently have the largest overall following on Twitter: Katy Perry (84,656,286)* Justin Bieber (77,335,718) Taylor Swift (73,088,914) Rihanna (57,392,903) Lady Gaga (57,226,697) Justin Timberlake (52,808,214) Britney Spears (44,485,999) Selena Gomez (40,513,535) Ariana Grande (37,373,246) Shakira (37,332,015) However, if you start to look at more recent activity it gets a bit more exciting. For instance, if we were to look at which accounts were followed the most in the past month, Kanye West (whose sustained Twitter tear has been well documented in the press over the past few months as everyone tries to figure out what on earth he is talking about) sneaks his way into the top ten, with more than a million new followers added in just 30 days. These 10 artists added the most new followers in the past 30 days: Katy Perry (1,729,741) Justin Bieber (1,720,725) Taylor Swift (1,700,539) Lady Gaga (1,379,308) Selena Gomez (1,332,989) Rihanna (1,187,725) Kanye West (1,163,400) Miley Cyrus (899,253) Ariana Grande (761,819) Drake (756,272) Kanye also happens to be the second-most retweeted artist in the past month, beat out narrowly by K-Pop band Bangtan Boys, and Zayn Malik proves that the One Direction team can indeed go another direction, racking up the retweets to the tune of more than 3 million. These 10 artists were retweeted the most in the past 30 days: Bangtan Boys (5,393,500) Kanye West (3,750,000) Justin Bieber (3,589,100) ZAYN (3,058,900) Ashton Irwin of 5 Seconds of Summer (2,197,100) Ariana Grande (2,095,000) Harry Styles (1,932,700) 5 Seconds of Summer (1,444,600) Demi Lovato (1,351,900) Camila Cabelo of Fifth Harmony (1,304,900) But which artists are we actually talking about on Twitter? Looking at the most mentioned artists over the past 30 days, we find that we still love Justin Bieber and Harry Styles, but also that relative newcomers like Troye Sivan (whose debut studio album dropped in December 2015) can quickly rise to fame and capitalize on their following to promote their work. These 10 artists were mentioned the most in the past 30 days: Justin Bieber (6,002,500) Harry Styles (4,929,700) Bangtan Boys (3,983,300) Ariana Grande (3,232,400) Fifth Harmony (2,152,200) ZAYN (1,981,600) Troye Sivan (1,734,400) Louis Tomlinson (1,467,900) Camila Cabelo (1,410,400) One Direction (1,265,400) In sum, the list of top tens on Twitter reminds vaguely of a who’s who of the Teen Choice Awards, but that doesn’t negate the value of the network as a platform for artists to reach their fans. In 140 characters or less, that is. *All values listed are at time of writing.

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Katy Perry and Kanye West: top artists on Twitter as platform celebrates 10th anniversary