Irish star is Britain’s 3rd most influential Tweeter

Irish pop star Niall Horan of One Direction has been named as one of the most influential Twitter users in the UK by Social analytics company Peerindex.

Niall Horan copyright Eva Rinaldi cc2
Niall Horan

The 20-year-old from Mullingar, Co Westmeath came third in the Peerindex list with only his band mates Liam Payne and Harry Styles ahead of him.

In fact the five members of One Direction currently hold the top five places in the list. This means they are more influential on Twitter than leading British politicians such as Prime Minister David Cameron, Opposition leader Ed Milliband and London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Ahead of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry

Other famous British Tweeters include comedians Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry. However, their influence is dwarfed by the boyband members.

Peerindex gave Twitter users a score based on how often their tweets were retweeted or favourited rather than how many followers they have.

Gervais has 4.9 million followers on Twitter and has a Peerindex score of 96. Horan, who has recently joked on Twitter that he has become engaged to American pop star Katy Perry, has 13.4 million followers and a Peerindex score of 98.

‘Contours of popular culture and power‘

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Peerindex founder Azeem Azhar said: “As Twitter has become more mainstream, the top 140 starts to resemble the contours of popular culture and power, the footballers, politicians and boybands.”

Social media has become a crucial resource for artists to promote themselves and get their messages across. It gives them a perfect platform to interact with their fans. Often the most engaging Twitter users go on to become more successful in the offline world.

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By Michael Kehoe

Michael Kehoe is a writer for Irish Music Daily and Ireland Calling. His favourite Irish Music bands are Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys.