culled from punchng.com
As more Nigerian entertainers embrace
Twitter as a public relations tool with a view to boosting their career
and image, Ayo Balogun popularly known as Wizkid leads the pack.
A check on the social network shows that
Wizkid, who tweets via @wizkidayo, has 658, 683 Twitter users
subscribing to his tweets. On the social network, the hundreds of
thousands of his followers are being kept abreast of release of his
music singles and albums as well as his itinerary, which include his
foreign trips or local travels to perform in one show or the other.
For instance, on Thursday, he intimated
his followers of his trip to the United Kingdom as he left a message on
his handle, saying, “Off to London with the crew! Turn up!’’
Following Wizkid closely from behind is
famous Afro hip hop singer and songwriter, D’Banj, whose real name is
Dapo Adebanjo. D’Banj, who tweets via @iamdbanj, has 572, 630 followers
on the micro-blogging service. After the successful showing of his
“D’Kings Men Live in Concert” in Lagos, he took to social network
appreciating those who graced the event.
“I wanna say a big thanks to all
of you that supported the DKM Concert! My fans and friends, God bless
you all,’’ he had stated. Apart from projecting his career to the
outside world via the social service, the platform is fast turning to an
avenue he uses to gauge public opinion about his shows and events.
Sitting comfortably on the third spot on
the Nigerian Twitter sphere is award-winning record producer and
singer, Don Jazzy. Don Jazzy, who is the Chief Executive Officer and
founder of Mavin Records, a label he floated after splitting with D’
Banj, is notorious for creating a buzz on Twitter with the manner he
literally shares money on the social service.
Last month, he gave out N100,000 to one
of his followers who retweeted one of his tweets containing a single
dot(.) and no other message, a move many users on the social service
view as a public relations stunt. The music producer tweets via
@DONJAZZY and now has a following of 503, 000.
Nigerian R and B artist, Olubankole
Wellington, known under the stage name Banky W, also pulls a strong
following on Twitter. He boasts a following of 457,809, making him
occupy the fourth spot among his peers on the social service.
Afro hip hop singer, 2 Face Idibia is
also a prolific Twitter user and occupies the fifth spot in the comity
of entertainers who use the social service. While appreciating the power
of social media in giving adequate publicity to various phenomenon,
2Face is using his Twitter handle to promote the recently released of
Rainbow remix single, which featured American rapper, T-Pain, as he used
the picture of the single as his avatar on the network.
He also announced the availability of
the remix single on iTunes, a media player and media library application
developed by Apple Inc. He has 436, 589 followers.
Young hip hop sensation, Davido, is
sixth on the ranking. However, with 379, 365 people subscribing to his
tweets, Twitter has yet to verify his account, @iam_Davido. He had last
February expressed frustration with the development saying, “So dey say I gotta delete my account and make a new one to get verified, f**k that! I don’t want.’’
The 2005 African Movie Academy Award
winner, Genevieve Nnaji, and Peter Okoye of the P- Square duo, occupy
the seventh and eighth spots with 364,384 and 346,281 followers
respectively. Meanwhile, Paul Okoye, who tweets via @rudeboypsquare,
does not command a huge following like his twin brother as he has
followers of just above a 100,000.
Jude Abaga, known by the stage name MI,
and the winner of this year’s Best International Act (Africa) Award at
the BET Awards, Ice Prince, complete the top 10 with 323, 826 and 310,
193 followers respectively. MI tweets via @MI_Abaga while Ice Prince
uses @Iceprincezamani.
Other Nigerian entertainers who make use
of the social service for self-branding include Nollywood actress
turned singer, Tonto Dikeh, @ TONTOLET; Comedian, Basket Mouth,
@basket_mouth; actress Uche Jombo, @uchejombo among others
