What a stressful 10 minutes celebville must have had when the world of Twitter cleared all followers from our favourite celebs pages. One minute you’re bragging about being a member of the ‘million followers club’ and the next you’re sat wondering where all your thousands of adoring followers are hiding, “I feel so lonely” P Diddy tweeted, “come back soon. I can’t live without ya!!” The ‘Twitterbug’ even confused Stephen Fry, “I was sure I had more followers. Must have imagined it.”

Popularity on the site isn’t an indication of influence however; size doesn’t necessarily matter on Twitter, except to boost delicate celebrity egos. A study by Harvard Business School says, “Our claim is that follower count is not sufficient to capture the influence of a user (i.e., the ability of a user to sway the opinions of her followers). It only shows how popular the user is (i.e., the size of her audience).”

Actively searching out people who’s opinions and voice you find engaging and subsequently mentioning and retweeting them is a stronger indication of a person’s influence… so feel free to get mentioning and retweeting me (@hannahtelford28) as I work my way up to my millionth follower!