It’s not just social media mavens or gurus who have high follower counts on Twitter these days. Twitter now has its fair share of celebrity twitterers or tweeple with many, many followers (in fact, the first result from Google when you search for twitterer is none other than actor and writer Wil Wheaton, or @wilw on Twitter). Some are twittering by proxy or via their “social media directors”, but many celebrities take the time out to engage with the public and with their fans by posting tweets themselves.
Some politicians have been using Twitter as part of their election campaigning, e.g. US president-elect @BarackObama (with 151,735 followers and currently following 156,695, although apparently none of these influencers) and vice president-elect @joebiden (following 158 and with 3,969 followers), @JohnMcCain (following 5,801 and with 4,809 followers), and @johnedwards (following 8,865 and with 6,458 followers). There’s also @algore (with 23,158 followers and just following his media channel @current).
TV stars have also embraced Twitter. For example, from the popular science fiction drama Heroes, you can find the actors who play Matt Parkman (Twitter-loving Greg Grunberg or @greggrunberg on Twitter, ranked very highly in the tweetosphere [or is it the twittersphere?!] and who seems to have converted his brother @bradgrunberg to the site); Daphne Millbrook (Brea Grant or @breagrant on Twitter, who introduced Greg to Twitter); and villain Eric Doyle (David H. Lawrence XVII who tweets as @dhlawrencexvii). There’s also David Hewlett (@dhewlett), AKA the wonderful Dr. Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis, and his sister @katehewlett (who plays his sister Jeannie).
UK comedians have also taken to Twitter, including @JohnCleese, @stephenfry, and more recently @wossy (Jonathan Ross). You can read the exploits of sportspeople like Irish Olympic silver medallist @kennyegan, basketball player @THE_REAL_SHAQ (Shaquille O’Neill), cyclist @lancearmstrong and UK tennis star @andy_murray. And from the music world, there’s @britneyspears (an account salvaged from a squatter by her social media director), @MCHammer and @DaveJMatthews.
Other famous twitterers include @WardCunningham, the creator of the wiki, Virgin founder @RichardBranson, illusionist @pennjillette, and movie star @LukeWilson.
Less active are actor @WilliamShatner, with one tweet, and director @ThatKevinSmith, although the latter has started posting again in the past few days. One thing is for sure, however: with the momentum that Twitter has gained recently, you can expect to see many more of your favourite celebrities tweeting during 2009!
See also:
[…] (You can read my blog report of Tim O’Reilly’s interview with Twitter CEO Evan Williams from the Web 2.0 Expo Tokyo last year here, and there’s also my recent blog post about celebrity twitterers and other famous tweeple.) […]
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[…] Celebrity twitterers and other famous tweeple […]
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Hi John – great, fun post.
And in the interest of updatedness (is that a word?)… as of a couple of hours ago, UK TV & Radio Presenter and Comedian Jeni Barnett is also a Twitterer. It’s definitely her and not a fake, as I created the page background for her.
Would-be followers can find her at http://twitter.com/JeniBarnett.
Warmest
Claire
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Hi Claire!
Aha – cool!
When I saw your comment (it was truncated at the word “couple”, I thought you were going to tell me about celebrity Twitter couples… And the word “twitterpated” from Bambi popped into my head 🙂
Thanks for the update!
John.
—
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There’s also http://twitter.com/AlanCarr
Is that the real one?
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lol – twitter couples – now that’s an idea – can’t believe I’m saying this publicly, but I’d LOVE to follow Mr & Mrs Andre!
Will have to rewatch Bambi – havent seen it since I was tiny and the trauma has clearly wiped my memory :o)
Re: Alan Carr – I gather @wossy in his interim role as official twitter ‘celeb detective’ has confirmed it is him. I gather he’s trying to get fellow funny men Brand and Bryden in there. Michael MacIntyre would get my follow.
Oh… ex-England rugby captain Will Carling – you can add him to the ‘already doing’ it list. @willcarling
Anyway – its way past my bedtime.
Nighty night.
@BlogAngel
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Jackie Chan Now has Twitter?
http://twitter.com/jackiechanfs
@jackiechanfs
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