250,000 people have followed Manchester United's official Twitter account since it launched at 8.30am this morning.
The team is reported to be about to appoint a social media campaign manager, which may explain why they waited so long.
But the Red Devils are still miles behind when it comes to sheer number of followers. Here are some of the most followed accounts on the Tweet Machine.
10. Justin Timberlake - 22 million
How apt that JT should appear on our list; he's only performing in Dublin's Phoenix Part this very eve. The multi-talented Timberlake has 22 million followers, almost half the number of our top place finisher, but he has tweeted the least amount of times out of anyone in our top ten. Our guess is he's just too busy bringing sexy back.
9. Instagram - 22 million
With almost 23 million followers, Instagram, the photo-taking app which is primarily used for taking sepia-toned pictures of scenery and people's food, has officially hit the mainstream. If you listen closely you can hear the sound of hipsters everwhere deleting the app from their iPhones and quickly downloading obsure ones like Snapchat and Vine.
8. Britney Spears - 29 million
Timberlake's old buddy from the Mickey Mouse Club hasn't enjoyed the same success in recent years, so it's impressive that she has 7 million more followers than him. A quick visit to her profile and we discovered her new single features in the soundtrack for upcoming flick the Smurfs 2. Oh dear.
7. YouTube - 30 million
Funnily enough, YouTube is probably the reason at least a couple of the other accounts in this list have so many followers. Tweets are on the hour, every hour, and are generally just links to whatever's trending at that time. No jokes, this is a great addition to any Twitter feed.
6. Rihanna - 30 million
Recently Rihanna has been moving back and fourth between 5th and 6th position. We think she should just 'shut up and drive' herself into the better spot. (We'll let ourselves out.)
5. Taylor Swift - 30 million
Head-to-head with RiRi is that girl who's always breaking up with people. You know the one; she's also been feeling 22 a lot recently, even though she is in fact *shock horror* 23. Oddly, her Twitter handle is @taylorswift13; couldn't her record company have pulled some strings and gotten her name reserved? Surely that's one of the perks of being super famous.
4. Barack Obama - 33 million
Yes folks, there are in fact Twitter users who are more popular than the current US President. Obama has almost 34 million, but unlike the rest of the users here he doesn't really tweet; it's usually an unknown member of The White House PR department posting quotes and tidbits about whatever he's working on at the moment. You certainly won't see any TwitPic selfies or Instagram pictures of his dinner here.
3. Lady Gaga - 39 million
For a long time Gaga was queen of Twitter just as she was of the charts. As we write this she is now 50,000 followers behind the second most followed account, despite having temporarily shut down her account last month. Her bio now reads: "This interface has been shutdown temporarily. Please check back for updates," and her profile picture and header photo are blank. Rumour has it this could be ahead of a big annoucement about her up and coming third album.
2. Katy Perry - 39 million
Baby you're a firework! Or so Katy Perry would have you believe. Russel Brand's former wife recently passed out Mother Monster to move into second place position with 39 million. Fun fact: Perry joined Twitter a month before our first place finisher in February 2009, but has posted only a quarter of their number of tweets.
1. Justin Bieber - 41 million
Despite the recent bad press he's been getting (did you hear he was caught urinating into a restaurant mop bucket?), the Biebs still reigns supreme on the Tweet Machine. At more than 41.5 million followers at the time of publishing, Bieber is a whole 2.5 million ahead of runner-up Perry. Which of course begs the question: how many Justin Bieber fans actually are there? Surely they have to run out eventually. Unless of course every tweenage girl in the world has already followed him, and the rest of us are slowly becoming converted. And I was like, baby, baby, baby, nooo...
Images: Wikimedia Commons
