Salman Khan becomes Sultan of social media: Report

TO THE NEW, a digital technology company has released its annual Digital Celebrity Index 2016. According to Digital Celebrity Index, Salman Khan ranked top, indicating him as the celebrity with the largest fan base followed by DeepikaPadukone and Amitabh Bachchan respectively.

The Digital Celebrity Index is an annual social media analytics report based on the research conducted by the Analytics Services arm at TO THE NEW. The report considered past months of digital activities of the celebrities and includes analysis of their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and also the search trend analysis about the celebrities.

The report highlighted Salman Khan as the most followed Bollywood actor with a total of 51.9 mn fan base till September 2016. Joining him in the list was Deepika Padukone as the most popular female celebrity with a fan base of 48.2 millions. Amitabh Bachchan with an engagement score of 46.5 mn emerged as the most engaging celebrity basis the number of likes, comments and shares on social media.

Shah Rukh Khan topped the chat as a most discussed celebrity with a total of about 10 mn mentions, based on the conversations done by netizens around a particular celebrity. Apart from Deepika Padukone,Sonakshi Sinha and Priyanka Chopra were the other 2 celebrities in the Top 3 Female celebrities’ list with 22.1 mn followers each. However, Sunny Leone is the most active celebrity on Facebook with a total number of 560 posts during the time-period March to September.

Akshay Kumar had the highest % growth in the number of fans amongst the male celebrities with a growth rate of 20.77%. Ranveer Singh and Salman Khan were the other 2 celebs among the Top 3. On the other hand, Shraddha Kapoor had a growth rate of 32.96% and topped the list with the highest % increase in the number of fans among the female celebs followed by Jacqueline Fernandez and Anushka Sharma respectively.

Celebrity Brand Endorsement

When it comes to using the social platforms as a medium of brand promotion, Amitabh Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor emerged as a winner. Sonam Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan tied with 5 brand related tweets each. Amitabh Bachchan actively promoted the brand Jio, while Sonam Kapoor promoted Colgate and Oppo on Twitter. Whereas, Sharukh Khan ranked 3rd in the race of brand endorsements, promoting Jio and Frooti.

Speaking on the Celebrity Index, Deepak Mittal, CEO, TO THE NEW said “Social media has become a very critical component for celebrities to share their opinion and engage with the fans. Our annual Digital Celebrity Index is a medium to identify the most digital savvy celebrities and understand how they engage with the audience”.