Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh have hit the ultimate milestone on Twitter: one million followers. Who should they thank for the accomplishment? Hundreds of thousands of fake accounts following them.
Ohio State University tweeted out congratulations to their head coach for reaching the dubious honor. Urban Meyer himself referenced the tweet on his own account, thanking Buckeye Nation for helping him reach one million followers.
.@OSUCoachMeyer — the first coach in football to reach 1 million followers on @twitter!
NO fan base better than #BuckeyeNation! pic.twitter.com/14NcF2DJPn
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) October 2, 2016
Michigan Wolverines coach and Walmart khaki enthusiast also reached the milestone this week. Pretty amazing both reached the goal around the same time, so quickly, right? Yes, yes it is.
Deadspin’s Kevin Draper did some sleuthing on the composition of each coach’s Twitter followers. Draper found out in the last month or so, Meyer and Harbaugh each gained around 200,000 followers. Even with the college football season underway, it’s a significant boost. When Draper ran the accounts through the Twitter Audit app, the situation became clear: 41%, or roughly 417,000, of Meyer’s followers are from real accounts, while 40%, or just under 400,000, of Harbaugh’s followers are real.
Did Meyer and Harbaugh go the Joe Mande route and buy fake followers to reach the sizable goal? Probably not. As Draper points out, huge Twitter accounts are littered with fake followers due to their size. It’s suspicious that both Meyer and Harbaugh have an overwhelming majority of fake followers. Deadspin reached out to Michigan, who denied buying followers for Harbaugh, and Ohio Stat, who didn’t respond to request for comment.
The next goal Meyer and Harbaugh should face off against, aside from college football supremacy, is who can get the first million legitimate Twitter followers. With both accruing more fake ones than real ones, it could be a while.
[Deadspin]
