How Many Twitter Users Have Over One Million Followers?

Some people are happy with 100 followers; others, 1,000. Some don’t care at all, while others have dreams of hitting 100,000. Twitter is a vast community, and many of its users are content creators or curators, so it benefits those people to maximize their following. Now over 5 years old and with more than 200 million users, I was curious to see how many accounts have entered the Million Followers Club.

According to my research, there are nearly 700 Twitter users with one million or more followers—691 at the time of writing this, although someone new enters the club about twice a week these days. The most recently added member is actress Christina Applegate, and rapper Lupe Fiasco looks poised to be number 692. This club represents about 0.00003% of total users, so it’s a very exclusive membership. 

How do those in the Million Followers Club stack up to more average users? With my 4,000-plus followers, I’m about the 67,000th most-popular user, placing me in in the top 0.003%. And this random user, with 126 followers, is about the 426,000th most-popular, placing even him in the top 1%.

So why, you may ask, do people with a paltry 100 followers make the 1%? Well, not all of Twitter’s users are active. Only about half of Twitter accounts follow anyone, and less than half have one or more followers. In fact, only about 2 million users follow 500 or more people. It’s actually a rather small—but highly engaged and active—community on Twitter that drives most of the social network’s energy (not unlike most social networks).

Stepping it up a notch, what about the 10 Million Followers Club? This newly minted organization is the exclusive of exclusives—only 0.01% of those in the Million Followers Club qualify. If you’re a member here, you’re definitely a VIP, rolling with the likes of Barack Obama, Katy Perry, and of course Canada’s own Justin Bieber. In fact, only A-list celebrities and American presidents need apply.

Image: The Nicky Blog