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The 10 most followed tech brands on Twitter right now

By Stuart Thomas
Read nextGet ahead in social media: be useful
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Asking whether your brand is on Twitter is a little redundant these days. It’s been replaced by more pertinent questions, like: “what is your brand really doing on Twitter?” and “what are you doing to make Twitter work for your brand?”.

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To get an idea of how to answer those questions it’s worth looking at what the biggest brands on Twitter are doing right, what kind of tone they adopt and how they interact with their followers. Doing so can also give you an idea of how brands are perceived by the public. In that vein, Memeburn has collated the most followed tech brands on Twitter right now.

In order to get our positioning we’ve used the figures provided by prominent social analytics service SocialBakers. Some of the entries might seem a little strange to anyone buried as deep in the tech scene as the average Memeburn reader, but it’s worth bearing in mind that your average tweep may well not be as heavily plugged in to the tech world as you are.

Unsurprisingly, most of the top tech brands on the social network are also in the social game: YouTube, Facebook and Instagram all have large Twitter followings. Although these companies haven’t always had the best relationship with Twitter (things started out well with Instagram but disintegrated quickly after the latter was bought by Facebook), their own experience with social means they realise how valuable Twitter is as a platform.

Interestingly, the only hardware manufacturer in the top 10 is the US division of Samsung’s mobile operation. It’s worth bearing in mind however that when it comes to hardware, a number of the manufacturers have region-specific accounts which makes providing support easier.

1. YouTube: 21 673 238 Followers
I want you to stop for a moment and think about where most of the content you see shared on Twitter comes from. Think about how many times you’ve clicked that “view media” button and it’s been a YouTube video. That gives you a clue as to why YouTube’s account has so many followers, but it’s not the full story. The team running YouTube’s account tweets regularly and also shares some of the most kick-ass content on the video-sharing network.

2. Twitter: 15 595 247 Followers

Initially we thought having Twitter on this list would be cheating. Not in the “Tom has the most friends on Myspace” kind of way but because the team running it must know all the tricks to using the social network effectively. Sure a large portion of its following comes from people thinking that if they’re on Twitter, they should follow Twitter.

The fact that it’s second on the list though shows that it seems to keep things honest. It tweets the latest news from the social network’s various departments. That means it’s great for keeping up to date with a wide range of topics relating to Twitter, always a bonus when you’re looking for followers.

3. Instagram: 14 079 535 Followers

Not so very long ago, dear readers, Twitter was the best place for sharing your vintage filtered photos. Then, to put it bluntly, things fell apart. First Twitter stopped access to its API, meaning you could no longer find your Twitter friends’ Instagram accounts. Then Instagram cut off Twitter’s access to its cards, meaning that you could no longer preview Instagram photos on the social network. That hasn’t stopped the photo-sharing service tweeting though.

4. Ubersocial: 9 112 404 Followers

The third-party Twitter app was a must-have for many back in the days when Twitter’s mobile apps (on smartphones and feature phones) weren’t up to much. The account is incredibly personable and (unlike a couple of the others on the list), incredibly active on a variety of topics.

5. Twitpic: 8 444 167 Followers

The third-party picture sharing application made its name among citizen journalists looking to share photos on Twitter. It’s “big” moment was undoubtedly when a passenger on a ferry used it to share a photo of US Airways Flight 1549 shortly after it crash-landed on the Hudson River in 2009 before traditional media outlets arrived on the scene. Its founder Noah Everett recently launched a new version of Heelo — a sort of cross between Twitter and App.net.

6. Facebook: 6 259 798 Followers

Facebook doesn’t actually tweet all that often (the two tweets below appear consecutively on its Twitter feed). Then again, how many times do you really need to tweet when you’ve got over a billion users yourself?

7. A Googler (Google): 5 505 052 Followers

A Googler tweets the latest news from the internet giant and is the glue that binds all of Google’s various product accounts together. The people running those accounts aren’t afraid of having a little bit of fun either — as they showed when Google Maps launched on iOS.

8. Twitcam: 5 312 036 Followers

The platform, created by LiveStream, allows users to stream live video from their Twitter accounts. Its user numbers have been propelled by the fact that it’s used by everyone from serious news organisations to members of the boy band One Direction for streaming on the social network.

9. Samsung Mobile US: 4 315 186 Followers

The US iteration of Samsung’s mobile division clearly “gets” social media. The brand has 22 551 707 likes on Facebook, to go with the four-million so followers it has on Twitter (if there is a black mark, it’s on Google+ where it’s only been circled by around 268 000 people). At least part of its success on Twitter is down to the fact that it encourages people to share what they’ve done with their various Samsung products.

10. Hootsuite: 4 108 514 Followers

The social media management tool doesn’t just tweet about what’s going on with its own features and products. It’s also a great resource for articles and other social media tools.

Stuart Thomas

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Get ahead in social media: be useful
Ads & Marketing • 14 Jan 2013
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