Swift Leads Country Twitterers
Updated: The Kenny Chesney, cUnderwood83 and SugarlandFans feeds discussed below are not authentic.
[Date: 4/23/09] Ashton Kutcher (username: aplusk) has the most Twitter followers, 1,356,958. However, since social networks are like ocean tides moving in and out, one can expect these totals to change. MusicRow, decided to research which country music artists have the highest number of followers and found some surprising results, not the least of which is that the publication’s own Twitter feed is among the Top 20 in country music. Also no surprise is the enormous lead which Taylor Swift enjoys in this area. (In fact, the No. 2 entry on our list is a Swift wannabe.) Ms. Swift communicates all throughout the day, sharing her feelings with her fans with tweets such as, “wandering around an arena. By myself, looking like a lost child.” or “Kellie just got here. She just watched my dress rehearsal and is recommending the perfect pairs of shoes to go with each of my outfits. :)”
Artists use Twitter in different ways. But sometimes the feeds are unauthorized and not really from the artists. For example a feed labeled KennyChesney has 5,487 followers, with no tweets, but is not really from the artist. cunderwood83 with over 10,000 followers (listed below) is also unauthorized and not from the artist.
Log in to Twitter.com/username and read some of the tweets for yourself to see how artists are linking up with fans.
The numbers and ranking below were culled from data on Twittercounter.com and should be considered approximate. If your artist is missing, please send in their data and we’ll add them to this list. CountryMusic is the username for the CMA.
Overall Rank Username Followers
86 taylorswift13 304,804
267 tayswift 46,622
1029 LeannRimes 12,794
1048 KeithUrban 12,531
1151 cUnderwood83 10,838
1712 RascalFlatts 8,101
1713 Willie Nelson 8,100
1995 MartinaMcBride 7,150
2457 CountryMusic 5,913
2880 JulianneHough 5,137
4066 FaithHill 3,885
3849 Sugarlandmusic 3849
4352 SugarlandFans* 3,541
4433 MusicRow 3,523
4506 DierksBentley 3,485
4607 JohnRich 3,385
* According to BigMachine Records, Taylorswift13 is the official username for Taylor Swift.
* cunderwood83 according to the label is not authorized.
* SugarlandFans according to the label is not authorized.
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In no particular order.
@jackingrammusic 3740 followers
@EliYoungBand 894 followers
@bobbyduncan 84 followers
@waltwilkins 92 followers
@pattygriffin 244 followers
@corycmorrow 330 followers
@old97s 353 followers
@WadeBowen 1020 followers
@KevinFowler 1048 followers
@MikeEYB 1344 followers
@thegougers 113 followers
@JamesMcMurtry 295 followers
@autumnbouk 1327 followers
@BandofHeathens 448 followers
@hayescarll just getting started.
and…@txmusic with 176 followers.
Pretty sure that “Carrie Underwood” is fake. Her MySpace claims she’s not on twitter: http://www.myspace.com/carrieunderwood
Also, CMA is really @CountryMusic.
Label confirms that the Carrie Underwood and Kenny Chesney accounts shown above are fake. Neither has an official account. However, two Sony music artists that are Twitter-active are Chuck Wicks (chuckwicksmusic; 2725 followers) and Jake Owen (jakeofficial;2785).
Jake Owen: @jakeofficial 2785 followers
Big Machine correctly adds that Jack Ingram and Jewel have a large Twitter following which should be included in the above list.
Jack Ingram (@jackingrammusic; 3754 followers)
Jewel (@jeweljk; 8315)
Twittercounter is clearly not a complete listing, but it does place the relative size of artist followings in perspective.
Found another
Toby Keith (@TobyKeithmusic; 4268)
KingBilly (@KingBillyband -386 followers)
Danielle Peck is getting started. @daniellepeck
@sugarlandmusic is the official Sugarland Twitter and has more followers than the one listed above (3648)
http://www.twitter.com/sugarlandmusic
http://www.twitter.com/davidnail
http://www.twitter.com/leeannwomack
http://www.twitter.com/garyallan
http://www.twitter.com/billycurrington
http://www.twitter.com/juliannehough