By Barracuda Labs
For the past year, we have released analysis on user behavior and malicious activity on Twitter. Just last week, Barracuda Labs released our 2010 Midyear Security Report that focuses on The Dark Side of Twitter and Search Engine Malware. On the same day, Kanye West joined Twitter. In March we explored the effect of celebrities joining Twitter in what we called the Twitter Red Carpet Era. We showed that during that six-month period, more than half of the top 100 users joined Twitter, causing a spike in overall usage and a subsequent spike in the Twitter Crime Rate (the number of accounts created and later suspended by Twitter because of suspicious or malicious use).
Kanye joined Twitter with a splash. First of all, he visited the Twitter offices that morning, but what’s more interesting is the rate at which he attracted followers. Since we have access to this data and machines constantly analyzing it, we decided to have a little fun. This week, Barracuda Labs will present a series of infographics that illustrate Kanye’s first week on Twitter.
Today, we show the first view. The first question that we wanted to answer was what kind of people are attracted to follow Kanye? For example, do they follow other musicians or other types of people? We looked into several notable users to examine the overlap between Kanye’s followers and their followers.
Let’s review:
Taylor Swift: Taylor Swift and Kanye shared a moment on stage at last year’s MTV Awards when he interrupted her speech. He has since apologized to her and she accepted. Their followers seem to have followed suit as a substantial amount of people follow both Kanye West and Taylor Swift. In fact, 20% of Kanye’s followers also follow Taylor Swift. By the way, Taylor Swift joined Twitter 20 months ago during the Red Carpet Era and has since attracted 3.8 million followers.
Amber Rose: Amber Rose and Kanye West dated for several years, frequently an item at photoshoots and fashion shows. They recently moved on; however, their followers still appreciate both of them. In Kanye’s first week, more than half of Amber’s followers already follow Kanye. Further, Kanye has seven times more followers than Amber who joined two months ago.
Power: Kanye’s new song is called “Power” but let’s compare him to the most powerful person on Earth: the President of the United States. Kanye was a vocal supporter of Obama during his campaign. More than 190,000 of Obama’s followers already follow Kanye, showing that over one-third of Kanye’s followers also follow the President.
Perhaps Kanye’s followers are into political leaders of all parties. How about Newt Gingrich? Less than 5,000 of Newt Gingrich’s followers have decided to follow Kanye. This means that less than 1% of Kanye’s followers also follow Newt.
Stay tuned for more analysis on Kanye’s first week on Twitter – and on the overall Red Carpet effect. We think you’ll find the next few days very interesting… and possibly worth a Retweet of your own.
Meanwhile, follow us on Twitter at @barracudalabs for ongoing updates!
