140 million monthly active Twitter users
340 million tweets sent per day
25 million+ followers of Lady Gaga, the current record holder
22 percent of President Obama’s US-based followers who make more than $100,000 a year
30percent of Mitt Romney’s US-based followers who make more than $100,000 a year
$500 amount former ESPN contributor and alleged Internet scammer Sarah Phillips reportedly paid to an Ottawa sports blogger for his Twitter account and its 2,000 followers
$11,100 winning eBay bid for the right to have your Twitter handle on runner Nick Symmonds’s arm during the Olympics
$10-$17 price range to buy 1,000 Twitter followers
$280-$497 price range to buy 50,000 followers
40-70 percent of the average Twitter user’s followers who are identifiable people as opposed to business, spam, or anonymous accounts
8 percent of Newt Gingrich’s followers who could be identified as real people in August 2011, prompting accusations that he bought followers
26 percent of Newt Gingrich’s current followers who have been identified as real people
It's impossible to say for sure how many people on Twitter are real or fake because a lot of this data isn't readily available to analyze. But a lot of Twitter bots follow Twitter's suggested users, so I would think that a lot of celebrities on Twitter can be identified as having a number of fake followers through no fault of their own. Much as I dislike him, the available evidence doesn't necessarily implicate Newt Gingrich in this.
This business practice is fairly rampant among pretty much all industries. You can see just how many companies are listed at Buy Facebook Fans Reviews that also promote Twitter accounts. Businesses always want to portray themselves as having a large following for purposes of social proof (so people trust them more) so this is why they buy likes and followers. I think that Twitter can help reduce this practice by just creating better advertising options for smaller businesses. Right now, Twitter is set up mostly to cater to large brands that want to spend 5,000 dollars+ a month on ads. Better ad units that cater to smaller businesses would help reduce this practice IMO.
#1 Posted by George L., CJR on Tue 17 Jul 2012 at 12:06 PM