Second most powerful tweeter in the UK

Alan Carr is the second most powerful British person on Twitter, according to new research.

His 2million followers, and level of activity – including how widely he is retweeted - puts him second only behind Sir Richard Branson in the Independent’s list of the top 100 users of the site.

Carr is joint second with Sarah Brown, the former Prime Minisyer’s wife and now active campaigner.

In its analysis, the newspaper called Carr ‘a genuine Twitter star’ adding: ‘Promotion of his TV show, Chatty Man, has been siphoned off to a separate Twitter account operated by a girl called Sam who works "from a cell", according to Carr.

‘This frees up the man himself to fill his timeline with air kisses to fellow celebs and greetings to fans who, for the most part, shower him with praise. (The sadly inevitable homophobic abuse is simply ignored.) The result is a Twitter output that is engaging, upbeat, funny and a occasionally a bit crazy.’

Immediately below Carr is Ricky Gervais, Rob Brydon, Chris Moyles and Jamie Oliver, all fourth equal. Brydon is notable as he has only 750,000 followers – compared to the 2million of the others.

The Independent worked with PeerIndex to compile the list to analyse who holds the most influence and power, not just who has the most followers. The list is based on how people respond to tweeters, the influence of their tweets and the number of re-tweets.

The list is strong on comedians, with Eddie Izzard, James Corden and Stephen Fry also in the top 10, and 11 of the top 20 coming from the world of comedy.

The top comedians and comedy writers – with their position overall in brackets are:

1 Alan Carr (2=)
2= Ricky Gervais (4=)
2= Rob Brydon (4=)
4 Eddie Izzard (8=)
5= James Corden (10=)
5= Stephen Fry (10=)
7 Jimmy Carr (14=)
8 Leigh Francis (16)
9 Dara O Briain (17)
10= David Mitchell (18=)
10= Simon Pegg (18=)
12 Graham Linehan (38)
13 Bill Bailey (69=)
14 Robin Ince (77)
15 Sharon Horgan (87=)
16 Sarah Millican (97=)

Published: 1 Mar 2012