People love celebrities as if they are a part of their own families. The main difference is that unlike many family members, celebrities are glamorous, rich and famous. They also enjoy the luxury have having a built in audience, making them a powerful presence in social media. When it comes to Twitter, it takes more than fame alone to curate a large following. Here are some of the most followed superstars on Twitter.

Best of the Best: Celebrities With the Most Twitter Followers

Image via Flickr by Alan Light

Making it into the top 10 in the Twitter rankings is a measure of global popularity.  That may explain why eight of the top 10 are people and all but one (President Barack Obama) are entertainers, most commonly singers. That explains why the top rank goes to Justin Beiber (41 million followers) followed by Lady Gaga (38 million followers.)

The rest of the top 10 — with three major exceptions — are some of the most popular singers in the Western cultural world.

Numbers three through ten go to the following:

3. Katy Perry (38 million followers)

4. Barack Obama (33 million followers)

5. Rihanna  (30 million followers)

6. Taylor Swift  (30 million followers)

7. YouTube (29  million followers)

8. Britney Spears  (28 million followers)

9. Justin Timberlake  (22 million followers)

10.  Instagram  (22 million followers)

Just to keep these numbers in perspective, there are an estimated 317 million people in the U.S., so the number of individual twitter followers for anyone or anything in the top ten list is an impressive figure.

The Celebrity List

Image via Flickr by Eva=B

For the entertainers, fans generate tweets to share news and opinions about their work. For the fans, the tweeting is more about publicly proclaiming their likes or dislikes about their celebrities’ latest works or personal news.  Of course, making the top 10 twitter list is always an achievement, but it is always changing.  This is why anyone can use the app to check the top ten twitter list.

Not All Celebrities Are People

The biggest surprise in the top 10 list of Twitter followers is that two of the top 10 are not people; they are corporations or Internet applications.  This includes You Tube and Instagram. Their rank in the top 10 is due to their shareability. People are passing along interesting, unusual or provocative visuals and sharing them on smartphones like the BlackBerry Q10.

Instagram, Facebook’s photo sharing app, could also rise in the top ten twitter rankings when it adds a feature  so users can add videos of three to 15 seconds.  Based on news reports, users can then add a collage to customize the clips. The addition of Instagram and its video capabilities should solidify Facebook as the second most popular video site, second only to YouTube. This may explain why the only two Web corporations making the top ten list all have video in common.

Popularity, Trending and Tweeting

Image via Flickr by Krazydad/ Jbum

Yet while making the top ten in twitter is one way to gauge popularity, there are other measures as well. Celebrity sites present the latest trending news about major TV, film and entertainment celebrities and what is driving their popularity. This site has video, photos and news about celebrities which can generate more interest from their fans to share.