Happy Belated Anniversary To Twitter! In just five years, Twitter has evolved from a trivial messaging device to a multi-million dollar micro-blogging service with more than 200 million users.

Five years ago, on March 21st, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and chairman of Twitter, sent the first tweet that said: “inviting coworkers.”

To mark the anniversary, Twitter released some up-to-date statistics to illustrate its global usage.

• On average 149 million tweets are sent a day, which is up nearly 100 million from last year.
• More than 460,000 new accounts have been added every day over the last month.
• Mobile use of Twitter has grown 182% in the last year.
• Twitter has more than 200 million registered accounts.
• 1,600 tweets are posted every second.

Musicians seem to know how to attract Twitter followers.  Three of the users with the highest number of followers are Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears.  12 of the most-followed people on twitter are singers.  These celebrities use twitter as a way to share their thoughts and experiences with fans in real time.

Clay Aiken has said that he is not a fan of twitter. He does have a verified twitter account, but his tweets are all from “Team Clay’ and not personal.

Many people feel that the number of followers a celebrity has, influences their media measurement.  The new company, Big Champagne, uses social networking as one of their criteria in ranking the popularity of musicians.  They feel that just selling albums is not the only important statistic in the music business.

This past weekend, some fans got together and decided to see if they could recruit some more “followers” for Clay’s twitter account.  They went on twitter and posted and re-tweeted.  Their goal was to get 5230 fans.  (Does that number look familiar?)  The tweeters generated some excitement for Clay and in a short time, the goal was reached and the number exceeded.  Clay gained more than 60 new followers over the weekend.

How many of you have a Twitter account?  Do you follow Clay?  If not, why not jump in and join the twitter family for Clay.  It is easy to sign up and all you have to do to follow Clay is push a button.  You can leave it at that or start sending some tweets.  You can be as involved as you want to be.

If you are feeling insecure and not sure what to do, just ask for help.  There are so many people who will be happy to help you get started.  AND…………it’s an easy way to show some support for Clay Aiken!

Speaking of Clay……these pictures just need to be shared!