Trump outshines other celebrities on social media

NEW YORK: Not only is billionaire Donald Trump outpolling the rest of the Republican presidential field, the former reality TV star has charged ahead of megastars Justin Bieber and Kanye West for celebrity mentions on social media, according to new data from the past month.



Trump raked in nearly 13.5 million Twitter mentions since Dec. 30, according to SocialFlow, a social media publishing platform. This put the real estate developer well ahead of virtually every major celebrity in the United States including Justin Bieber who brought in roughly 8 million, Kanye West with 6.2 million and Rihanna with 5.7 million.

Trump's Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump) has more than 5.9 million followers.

"If Trump gets elected there is no doubt in my mind Kanye replaces him in 2020," tweeted Peick (@andrewpeick).

"Donald Trump is the new Justin Bieber," tweeted Guess Who?! (@Vase_).

Trump has also proved his social media clout over his fellow Republican candidates. During Thursday's Republican presidential debate, the business tycoon commanded 36 per cent of the Twitter traffic, according to data provided by the social media site. That was far more than his competitors on the main stage, even though Trump did not attend the debate. Furthermore, He was by far the most-searched-for candidate on Google during the first half of the debate, at one point outpacing the second-most-searched-for candidate, Rubio, by nearly four-to-one, according to Google Trends data.

Want to replay the #GOPdebate (and see how @realDonaldTrump led all night?). #dataviz https://t.co/tDHiVduRuj pic.twitter.com/dP4IdAhpTV

— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) January 29, 2016

However, Trump's dominance of social media was not constant.

On Wednesday, Kanye West's Twitter beef with fellow rapper Wiz Khalifa put his one-day mentions over Trump.



Even the late rock star David Bowie was a social media hero, just for one day. The day after he died, Twitter mentions of Bowie outpaced those of The Donald on Jan. 11.