3rd April, 2013
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, founder and Senior Pastor, Christ Embassy, has emerged the most followed Nigerian celebrity on Twitter with over a million followers.
In a report compiled by a portal, Nigeriansreports.com, and titled “The official Top 10 Most Popular Nigerian Celebrities On Twitter, Spring 2013”, the charismatic televangelist with his twitterhandle @PastorChrisLive, ranked the most popular Nigerian celebrity on Twitter with 1,150,714 followers.
Oyakhilome is trailed by Afro-pop stars Wizkid (@wizkidayo) and D’Banj (iamdbanj) both with 532,339 and 511,891 followers respectively.
Famous music producer Don Jazzy (@DONJAZZY) is fourth in the ranking with 479,855 followers, while newly-wedded pop star 2Face Idibia (@2faceidibia) is the fifth most popular Nigerian with 335,633 Twitter followers.
Fast rising hip hop sensation Davido, (@iam_Davido) has 314,829 followers on the social networking site.
Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji (@GenevieveNnaji1) is the most popular Nigerian female celebrity on Twitter with 287,230 followers.
Peter Okoye, one half of the Pop twin sensation Psquare, with Twitterhandle @PeterPsquare, has 272,980 followers and ranks the eighth on the rating. Basketmouth, famous comedian and MC with Twitterhandle @basket_mouth has 209,976 followers.
On the tenth position is Tonto Dike, sensational Nollywood actress. The tattoo-loving aspiring hip-hop singer with Twitterhandle @TONTOLET joins Genevieve on the Top 10 with 176,971 followers.
Speaking on the rating, Michael Chima Ekenyerengozi, publisher, Nigeriansreport.com, said it took days of thorough analysis and statistics from Twitter to finally compile the official top 10.
“This is for the Spring season, and the list will be updated every quarter and that means there is competition for those on the chart to remain on it or lose their exalted positions to other Nigerian celebrities,” he said.
He said none of the celebrated Nollywood male stars has up to 100,000 followers on Twitter, while other Nigerian female celebrities with over 100,000 followers on Twitter include Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Rita Dominic, Funke Akindele-Oloyede and Uche Jombo.
PMNEWS learnt that the majority of these celebrities, especially entertainers, are absent on other social media networks like Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+.
This has exposed their little or no knowledge of social media public relations and how they can maximize social media to boost their public relations and careers in the entertainment industry.
“Many of those claiming to have managers are either posturing or have incompetent managers who are clueless about the limitless potentials of using social media for public relations. They don’t even know what is the “Halo Effect” or the “Oprah Effect” in social media marketing. That is why we are witnessing what I call public relations disasters of many local celebrities,” the nigeriansreport.com publisher stated.
Twitter is world’s second most used social network with more than 500 million monthly users. It has been adjudged a very useful and interesting social network on which you can easily connect with your favorite stars, celebrities and loved ones.
Celebrities share latest news and updates with their fans and followers on twitter and other social networks, and interact with their fans which support and love them.
President Barack Obama is the only political leader included in top 10 most followed celebrities on Twitter, with young Canadian pop star Justin Bieber currently the most followed celebrity on Twitter. He has 35,464,975 followers and follows just 123,450.
—Funsho Arogundade