TO THE NEW, a leading digital technology company, has released its annual Digital Celebrity Index 2016, ranking Bollywood star Salman Khan as number one.

Khan has the largest fan base followed by Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan.

The Digital Celebrity Index is an annual social media analytics report based on the research conducted by the Analytics Services arm at TO THE NEW. The report considered past months of digital activities of the celebrities and includes analysis of their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and also the search trend analysis about the celebrities.

The report highlighted Khan as the most followed Bollywood actor with a total of 51.9 million fan base till September 2016.

Behind him was Deepika Padukone as the most popular female celebrity with a fan base of 48.2 millions. Amitabh Bachchan with an engagement score of 46.5 million emerged as the most engaging celebrity basis the number of likes, comments and shares on social media.

"Social media has become a very critical component for celebrities to share their opinion and engage with the fans. Our annual Digital Celebrity Index is a medium to identify the most digital savvy celebrities and understand how they engage with the audience," said Deepak Mittal, CEO of TO THE NEW.

Shah Rukh Khan is the most discussed celebrity with a total of about 10 million mentions, based on the conversations done by netizens around a particular celebrity.

Apart from Deepika Padukone, Sonakshi Sinha and Priyanka Chopra were the other 2 celebrities in the top 3 female celebrities' list with 22.1 million followers each.

However, Sunny Leone is the most active celebrity on Facebook with a total number of 560 posts during the time-period March to September.

Akshay Kumar had the highest percentage growth in the number of fans amongst the male celebrities with a growth rate of 20.77 per cent. Ranveer Singh and Salman Khan were the other two celebrities among the top 3.

On the other hand, Shraddha Kapoor had a growth rate of 32.96 per cent and topped the list with the highest percentage increase in the number of fans among the female celebs followed by Jacqueline Fernandez and Anushka Sharma respectively.

When it comes to using the social platforms as a medium of brand promotion, Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor emerged as a winner.

Kapoor and Bachchan tied with 5 brand related tweets each. Bachchan actively promoted the brand Jio, while Kapoor promoted Colgate and Oppo on Twitter. Whereas, Sharukh Khan ranked 3rd in the race of brand endorsements, promoting Jio and Frooti.

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