On Twitter, getting an endorsement from singer/mega-user Justin Bieber is like getting smacked with the follower stick. It will garner you thousands of fans in minutes—just ask Matt Lauer.
The Today show host joined Twitter on Friday morning and has already racked up 65,000 followers in his first hour. Lauer, who hosts the NBC morning program, is tweeting under the name @MLauer. Bieber appeared on the show to perform a concert and help Lauer start tweeting.
Lauer can thank Bieber for many of his followers, though. During the segment in which Today first announced his new account, he gathered 20,000 followers. After Bieber tweeted “Everyone follow my man @mlauer,” the host got an additional 30,000-follower boost.
Similar to watching a baby cow walk for its first time, Bieber helped Lauer send his first tweet. “Hello. Everyone go buy Justin bieber’s album #believe coming out June 19th,” tweeted Bieber on Lauer’s account.
A lot of tweets directed toward Lauer are from Bieber fans asking if he has “swag,” because that’s the high-brow conversational discourse you’re going to receive from getting a Bieber-backed follow request.
Lauer has tweeted four times Friday morning and even included a picture of himself, Bieber, and fellow host Ann Curry on the Today plaza in New York.
Now that NBC’s first man in the morning is tweeting, when will Nightly News anchor Brian Williams start doing it? He doesn’t need an endorsement though—he has more than 100,000 followers without tweeting once.
Photo via Twitter
