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most followed brands on twitter in 2019

25 most followed brands
on Twitter in 2019

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Veena Ramakrishnan

September 10, 2019 • 13 min read

Updated on September 19, 2019

While Barack Obama, Katy Perry, and Justin Beiber run the show as the most-followed people on Twitter, we wanted to know which brands were most followed. Luckily, we have a Twitter analytics tool that tracks, among other things, which brands have the most followers.

Twitter, with over 126 million daily active users, has earned its place as one of the top social media networks. Brands leverage Twitter for a whole bunch of reasons, from customer service, to product updates to engaging in industry-related conversations, it is the go-to network to increase brand visibility.

So what are brands offering to keep their audience engaged? What is their social strategy on Twitter? Are they paying to get more followers on Twitter or are they growing their fan base organically?

Top brands on Twitter

In the list below, you’ll see the growth charts of the most-followed brands on Twitter. You might notice that in the middle of 2018, all brands saw a little dip in followers. This was Twitter purging its network of bots and fake profiles.

1. PlayStation – 16.9 million followers

This gaming brand reigns on Twitter as the most-followed brand with close to 17 million followers. PlayStation added 12 million followers in the last 5 years, a staggering 376% growth in followers, with an average of 6833 followers added per day!

PlayStation uses Twitter to promote their games through trailers, promotional posters, and gameplay footage. PlayStation’s strategy on Twitter is to be at the beck and call of its gaming community. Whether it is resolving a gamer’s question on which game to purchase or expressing concern over a gamer’s problem, PlayStation is there for them.

PlayStation has run several campaigns in the past that have won them tons of engagement. One such campaign from 2018 was the #PlayStationClassic, a comeback collection of PlayStation’s classic games, which garnered the most engagement from the gaming community.

2. Xbox – 13.5 million followers

Xbox is the next brand from the gaming universe with 13.5 million followers. Xbox had a steady growth on Twitter over the last 5 years. The brand has added 10 million followers since 2014, a 400% growth in followers which is almost 5,655 new followers per day.

Xbox uses Twitter as its dedicated customer support forum. It listens to what its audience is saying about the brand and gives them instant support by replying to their tweets. In fact, in 2011 the brand even made it to the Guinness World Record for being the Most Responsive Brand on Twitter. Similar to PlayStation, the brand also uses Twitter to promote its games through trailers and promotional posters.

3. Chanel – 13.2 million followers

Luxury brand Chanel is the most-followed fashion brand on Twitter. The brand saw a consistent increase in followers over the last 5 years without any major upticks in growth. Chanel added an average of 5,088 new followers every day since 2014.

Chanel’s content strategy centers around photos of product promotions, behind-the-scenes photos of fashion shows, and celebrity endorsements that boost their engagement rates. Chanel’s highly engaging campaign was the launch of the brand’s winter/fall collection in 2015 that had an average engagement score of 712.

4. Samsung Mobile – 12.1 million followers

Samsung bucks the trend as the most-followed consumer electronics brand on Twitter leaving its direct competitors—Apple, Xiaomi, and Huawei—back at the starting line on this list of the most followed brands on Twitter.

The brand added 5 million followers over the last 5 years with an average of 2,671 followers added every day.

Samsung’s success on Twitter is a reflection of its highly engaging content. This includes information on new product features, how-to guides, and product launches in the form of videos and GIFs that sends their engagement rate soaring. Apart from their main Twitter account, Samsung has multiple handles tailored for specific countries and regional locations.

5. Starbucks – 11.4 million followers

Starbucks is a social media savant and knows how to play to its audience on Twitter. The brand uses this platform to engage with its customers and leverage user-generated content which has helped them grow to 11.4 million followers.

The brand added close to 6 million followers since 2014, a staggering 100% growth in followers with an average of 3,168 followers added per day!

The proactive tweets by the brand showcase its product images submitted by its fans, earning them loyal customers. Celebrity mentions of the brand is a bonus for Starbucks’ staggering growth on Twitter.

6. Victoria’s Secret – 11.2 million followers 

Victoria’s Secret is a force to be reckoned with. Its Twitter strategy is to not bore its fan following of 11 million followers with mainstream promotional videos but to allure them with captivating visuals of the brand label. The brand tweets an average of 18 times a day, most of which are replies to customers addressing their queries. It also taps into some fun banter with its followers like this one:

7. Marc Jacobs – 9 million followers

Marc Jacobs’ social media campaigns are highly innovative and engaging. In 2014, the brand’s pop up shop in New York asked its customers for social mentions on Twitter and Instagram as payments in exchange for its products. This campaign was a huge success on social which helped the brand get hundreds of organic mentions and user-generated content. Its content strategy on Twitter, like most fashion brands, follows the trend of uploading product-related images and videos, celebrity endorsements, and behind-the-scenes footage from fashion shows.

8. H&M – 8.4 million followers

H&M is yet another fashion brand that is doing a great job on Twitter. The brand tweets an average of 3 times a day, mostly about product updates and images of models adorned in H&M apparel which gets them tons of engagement from their followers.

9. Burberry – 8.4 million followers

Joining the list of fashion brands with a huge fanbase on Twitter is luxury brand Burberry, with a fan following of 8.4 million followers. Burberry’s content strategy is a mixed bag with celebrity endorsements, visually appealing videos, and alluring images of models adorned in Burberry. Burberry has a separate handle on Twitter for customer support, a common tactic that most brands follow so as to not mix their marketing efforts and customer support initiatives.

10. Dior – 8.1 million followers

Dior is a fine example of a brand reaping the benefits by effectively using hashtags. In 2013, Dior launched an ad campaign featuring Robert Pattinson (of Twilight fame) with the hashtag #DiorRob which won the brand thousands of mentions and retweets. The campaign even made a comeback in 2018 and had a similar effect as last time. Strategies like this and compelling content on Twitter has helped the brand grow a fan base of 8 million followers (and counting!).

11. Nike – 7.9 million followers

This iconic brand spearheads the athleisure industry with the most followers on Twitter at 7.9 at the time of writing. Nike’s staggering engagement rate accounts for the celebrity mentions the brand gets that include the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, and Kevin Hart among others. Campaigns like the 2018 #makersofthegame—a tribute to athlete Kobe Bryant who revolutionized sports and culture—and the 2017 #Breaking2—centered around athletes who embarked on running a marathon under 2 hours—were two campaigns that gave the brand a boost in engagement and follower growth.

12. Louis Vuitton – 7.4 million followers

Louis Vuitton has a visually appealing Twitter handle loaded with images of models adorned in the brand’s label. The luxury brand’s visual storytelling leaves its 7.4 million followers in awe and excitement to get their hands on the brand’s products.

13. Netflix – 6.5 million followers

Netflix is famous for its witty comebacks on social but if there is one place where I believe the brand shines best, it’s on Twitter. The brand uses its handle to not just address queries but also engage in conversations with fans talking about trending movies and TV shows. The brand tweets out an average of 14 times a day. While tweets with plain text perform better, those with links are the most frequent.

14. Gucci – 5.7 million followers

Like most fashion brands, Gucci tweets photos of product promotions, behind-the-scenes photos of fashion shows, and celebrity endorsements that wins them tons of engagement. Gucci has run several successful campaigns in the past. One such campaign featuring Harry Styles under the banner #GucciTailoring stood out and won the brand thousands of engagement.

15. Dolce & Gabbana – 5.3 million followers

Dolce & Gabbana’s Twitter strategy is to get their followers to go gaga over the brand’s opulent and bold fashion statements. The brand tweets an average of 3 times a day with alluring images of models and celebrities adorning the brand’s label which has luxury written all over it.

16. Versace – 4.7 million followers

Nothing wins more engagement for a fashion brand than an image of a celebrity wearing the brand label. Tweets showcasing celebrities like Ariana Grande, Kendal Jenner, and Scarlett Johansson, among others, adorned in Versace ensemble won them the most number of engagement from the brand’s ardent followers. The brand’s most engaging tweet in the last 6 months was this one of singer Mark Tuan wearing Versace for an award show which got them 53.7K likes on Twitter.

17. Whole Foods Market – 4.4 million followers

Whole Foods Market’s Twitter strategy is one to watch out for. The brand tweets an average of 24 times a day, most of which are replies addressing customer queries. But apart from that, the brand’s Twitter handle is loaded with information on easy to follow recipes, promotional content, knowledge about food and more. Occasional banter like the one shown below are reasons why this brand has an ardent fan following of more than 4.4 million followers.

18. Yves Saint Laurent – 4.2 million followers

Yves Saint Laurent’s Twitter feed has tons of eye-popping visuals of models and celebrities adorned in the brand label. The brand’s classy images and captivating videos on Twitter leave its 4.2 million followers itching to get their hands on the luxury designer brand’s latest products.

19. Adidas – 3.7 million followers

Adidas’ campaigns on social have always caught the attention of spectators across the world. The brand leverages in-stream video ads on Twitter to launch its products with an inspiring campaign message. With images of sports personalities adorned in the brand’s label and motivating campaigns, Adidas keeps its 3.7 million followers inspired and enthused to buy their products.

20. Calvin Klein – 3.7 million followers

Calvin Klein has 3.7 million followers on Twitter that adore the brand for its highly stylish product line. CK tweets an average of 2 times a day with images of celebrities and models adorned in the brand label.

21. McDonald’s – 3.6 million followers

This QSR chain gets social media. McDonald’s is all about positivity and dry humor on Twitter. The brand has multiple Twitter accounts catering to specific countries and geographical locations they have outlets in (which is pretty much all of them, right?). McDonald’s content on Twitter takes inspiration from real-time events and major holidays that always win tons of engagement from its fans.

22. Michael Kors – 3.5 million followers

Like most luxury brands on this list, Michael Kors uses Twitter to showcase its products in classy campaigns and alluring images of celebrities and models in the MK ensemble. Michael Kors excels at influencer marketing and that has helped create an appreciable Twitter presence for the brand.

23. Armani – 3.4 million followers

Armani is yet another luxury brand that does well on Twitter. The brand launched a campaign on its new line of eyewear in 2016 with the hashtag #FramesOfLife featuring 5 real individuals—not influencers or celebrities—sharing their real-life stories, which won them tons of engagement for its innovative campaign theme.

24. Wendy’s – 3.3 million followers

If there’s one thing that Wendy’s loves to do—besides serving lip-smacking burgers and shakes—it is to roast people on Twitter. Not just people, the brand loves to throw some snark and sass at its competitors as well! This is all the more reason why Wendy’s has such an ardent fan following on Twitter.

25. Coca-Cola – 3.3 million followers

Coca-Cola is a legendary brand, so it comes of no surprise for the brand to have multiple Twitter accounts and even dedicated accounts for some of its products—like Coke Zero, Diet Coke and so on. Coca-Cola has also carved a name for itself by launching several viral campaigns—the happiness machine campaign stands as a tall victory to till date—that has helped them grow a fan following of more than 3 million followers on Twitter.

Here are some tips to score big on Twitter:

I’m going to start with an obvious one…

1. Post great content

Kinda obvious, but when you’re done rolling your eyes you should know that nothing fetches more followers for a brand as much as a well-crafted content strategy does. The content that you post acts as the voice of your brand. Quality of tweets matter more than the quantity, but at the same time quantity cannot be ignored. When you run out of content ideas (although with Discover, that should never be an issue!), you can always reshare other people’s content relevant to your business. Be an informer instead of just pushing out content only relevant to your brand.

2. Respond to @mentions

Your customers will get annoyed if you don’t reply to them. I’m not making this up. It turns out that 15% of customers go to the extent of unfollowing a brand if they don’t hear back from them. So if you want to clinch the title for being the Most Responsive Brand on Twitter like how Xbox did, then I suggest you respond to your @mentions from time to time.

3. Timing matters

Look for insights on when the best time to post on Twitter is to get maximum engagement. Twitter analytics tools come in handy to get insights on the best and worst time to post, days when your audience is most active, and so on.

4. Use up those 280 characters

Twitter’s decision to extend the character limit from 140 to 280 was met with mixed reactions. Nevertheless, brands found this as a blessing to not have to go through the trouble of editing their tweets to keep them concise and more often than not, not sending the tweet out in parts because of the character limit. So feel free to use up all 280 characters to get your message across or to be more specific in addressing complaints. Or you could just go crazy like how Marvel did:

5. Chime in on trending topics

Get clarity on whether a topic is trending and relevant before you put your two cents in. Don’t do it just for the sake of it, instead see it as an opportunity to join the conversation and engage with the community. More often than not, trending topics may have no relevance to your brand or business but once again this just poses as an easy opportunity for you to put a spin on such trending topics and win interactions.


If you admire the strategies of these top 25 brands and want to evaluate your social media marketing plan, be sure to track your efforts with Unmetric Analyze.

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