SpeedPlexer Blog

The Mental Floss Blog posted a list on Monday of the most followed Twitter users…who are real people.  Their example to distinguish the difference: “For instance, President Obama would easily make this list, but we know for a fact that he isn’t the one tweeting on his account at this time.”

They also make a point of saying that the most followed aren’t always the most influential, and point us another site called Klout.com to find that info. 

10. Katy Perry -3,491,410, Klout score: 74- a pretty, quirky pop music singer/songwriter. 

9. John C. Mayer – 3,602,876, Klout: 66 - an accomplished pop musician whose dating history and social life have both been well covered by the media.

8. Taylor Swift – 3,970,319, Klout: 77 - a young country music star, the youngest person ever to win the Academy of Country Music’s Album of the Year and Entertainer of the Year award.

7. Oprah Winfrey – 4,060,639, Klout: 65 - an incredibly popular daytime talk show host since 1986.

6. Kim Kardashian – 4,514,040, Klout: 93 - famous for being famous…and beautiful.

5. Justin Bieber – 4,681,996, Klout: 100 - Canadian tween heartthrob who became famous with internet speed by uploading his music videos to YouTube.

4. Ellen DeGeneres – 5,072,270, Klout: 80 - a stand up comedienne turned actress, then daytime talk show host, and American Idol judge.

3. Ashton Kutcher – 5,569,167, Klout: 97 – boyishly handsome and funny actor turned creator/producer of projects like “Beauty and the Geek” and “Punk’d,” married to Demi Moore.

2. Britney Spears – 5,690,685, Klout:80 – from the Mickey Mouse Club to pop music stardom, she’s ranked the third most powerful female musician of the year by Forbes magazine.

1. Lady Gaga – 5,714,890, Klout: 81 - a recording artist well known for her pop hooks and outrageous outfits.

Once you’ve found all of your existing friends who are already on Twitter, how do you know how to find who to follow, and do so with internet speed?  Twitter has, according to their e-mail Newsletter, “created a selection of tools to help you discover the accounts that are creating the information you want.”  (Read more about it on their blog.)

Here’s what they’ve done, just for you:

• Worked with LinkedIn to create the Tweets app on LinkedIn — useful for finding and following tweets from your colleagues.

• Published a directory of popular accounts organized by topics of interest

• Released a feature called Suggestions for You which makes follow recommendations on Twitter.

Okay, that helps you find who to follow, but what about those who are following YOU? 

Mashable offers a list of five different ways to visualize what your followers are all about.

1. TwitterSheep generates a keyword cloud based on the text in your followers’ bios. It’s quick, easy and free!

2. Neuro Productions browser allows you to see the circles of connections on Twitter. Enter any Twitter user’s name and the app will load up a circle of contacts, along with their thumbnail pic and latest tweet. Click on any of those people in the circle and do the same.

3. ISParade trots your followers’ pics out with stick figure bodies so you can see them in a parade.

4. TweepsKey is confusing to describe, but here it goes: it displays your “tweeps” as differently colored and sized dots depend on the number of tweets and how many followers they have. Or something like that.

5. Crowded Ink “Friends” Mug lets you print your followers photos on a coffee mug that you can proudly display in your office.

Surely you’ve heard about Toyota’s troubles of late.  As the L.A. Times technology blog tells us , “If ever there were a company in need of positive spin it’s Toyota. With the relentless grind of safety recalls and suffering sales, the Japanese automaker has tapped Twitter to help repair its image.”

With the help of Federated Media, they’ve launched a channel called Toyota Conversations, on TweetMeme.  The channel features news stories, videos and also shares tweets from Toyota’s Twitter account and its own AdTweets.

As TechCrunch points out, the Twitter sentiment application Tweetfeel suggests that the Twitter universe trends more negative, as does the press. But TweetMeme can be programmed to share news from only certain sources, so it’s chosen the positive ones.

Now more than ever, brands are flocking to Twitter to not only monitor and track what’s being said about their company on Twitter but to participate in the conversation and influence it ASAP with internet speed. Now Twitter has become a valuable tool for crisis communications folks.

A good example of how Twitter and other forms of new-media mass communication are shaping public relations is when film director Kevin Smith Tweeted that Southwest Airlines asked him to leave the plane for being too overweight to fly. As a man with more than 1.5 million Twitter followers, the story was eventually picked up by celebrity gossip show TMZ. Though Southwest posted an apology, the PR nightmare may not be over yet.

Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang said, “In the social sphere, it’s often best to be proactive during a crisis, to let the market know you’re listening, and centralize the discussion around your brand, giving the brand more opportunity to guide the conversation.”