Donald Trump has now reached more than 20 million follows on Twitter, a milestone that now places him in the same category with Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. However, he is still behind Barack Obama and Katy Perry.
Twitter’s stats tool TwitterCount, places the President-elect at the 68th position as the most followed person on Twitter, some few distance from Indian actor Aamir Khan, reported CNN.
It is reported that Trump’s aides have been focused on seeing his followers base increase to past 20 million.
On a regular basis, Mr. Trump has talked about his social media sites asking his supporters to follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Some believe that he is focused on ensuring he has at least 46 million followers across all the three sites.
The figures may be impressive but just like most social media users, Mr. Trump has dormant and bot followers. These are people who rarely see what he posts.
Of the three sites, Trump seems to prefer Twitter, which he has from time to time used to reply to critics and news coverage. Many have nicknamed him the “First Twitter President.”
The actual first US President to use Twitter is Barack Obama who has 80 million followers despite being an infrequent user compared to Mr. Trump. The White House’s official @POTUS account has a total of 13.5 million followers.
When he won the election, Mr. Trump told 60 Minutes that he would restrain from Twitter but that doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime soon.
While speaking to Sunday Times and Germany’s Bild, Trump said that he thought he would have few reasons to tweet. Unfortunately he feels the media covers him so unfairly. For that matter, he has to take to Twitter and correct any misconception.
When he was asked whether he would use White House official Twitter account, he indicated that he will continue to use his personal account rather than @POTUS.
“I think, I’ll keep it … so I’ve got 46 million people right now – that’s a lot, that’s really a lot – but 46 million – including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram so when you think that your 46 million there, I’d rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it’s working,” he said.
Donald Trump has continued to be a controversial leader, confusing even the newsrooms on how they should cover his tweets.
However, his surrogates and aides at times do not agree with what he says and publicly contradict him.
While being interviewed by The Times, Mr. Trump said that he makes headlines even with his tweets. The American news channels quickly pick his comments and make news out of them.