While the jury may still be out on who between Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan commands more political oomph, the latter seems to have emerged as a clear winner when it comes to Twitter.
Data culled by Twitter relating to the period January to May 2018 show Mr. Haasan comfortably placed at the number one spot as the most talked about male celebrity in the Tamil entertainment segment.
Mr. Rajinikanth stood a close second. While actor Suriya took the third spot with his regular movie updates, veteran actor Prakash Raj clinched the fourth spot with his comments on the political scenario and the film industry. Music composer and singer Anirudh Ravichander completed the list, with his song launches and inspirational tweets.
Burning issues
What helped Mr. Hassan climb Twitter ladder were his tweets on various issues like the Cauvery dispute and updates on his upcoming film
Vishwaroopam-2
and his newly launched political party Makkal Needhi Maiam.
Mr. Rajinikanth was propelled by the launch of his film
Kaala
and a customised emoji.
According to Keya Madhvani Singh, Head, India Entertainment Partnerships, Twitter India, both the stars – Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth – have a huge fan base on Twitter. Since Mr. Haasan is quite active on the online forum, he has gained more traction globally. She added, “There is an active global audience interested in Tamil content.”
She pointed out the volume of conversations relating to the Tamil film industry is increasing multi-fold on Twitter and the Tamil diaspora across the world is following tweets from the Tamil film industry.
Jennie Sager, Director, Content Partnerships, Asia-Pacific, Twitter, said that entertainment was a huge opportunity.
“After the release ofBaahubali2 we saw the kind of potential South Indian films have. Now, we want to capitalise on it,” she said. Ms. Sager also said that Twitter has a dedicated team that closely monitors the entertainment sector which includes movies, lifestyle, food and fashion.
Both Ms. Madhvani and Ms. Sager said that going forward, Twitter would be focusing on building newer avenues and partnerships to delight fans of Tamil and Telugu films and enhance their experiences.
Twitter Moments, which stitches multiple tweets into a single slide, has also gained traction with posts from the Tamil entertainment industry.
In the ‘female celebrities from Tamil entertainment’ category, Samantha Akkineni topped the chart followed by Kajal Aggarwal and Rakul Preet. Actress Keerthy Suresh is placed fourth with lots of conversations around her role as Savitri in her new movie
Mahanati
. Completing the list was actress Tamannaah Bhatia.
In terms of hashtags, #Thalapathy, #Thala, #Ajith were among the Top 10. Actor Vijay-starrer
Mersal
continued to be among the Top 10 hashtags in 2018. The film was released in 2017.
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