UFC President Dana White Reaches One Million Followers on Twitter

"It’s good to be King and have your own world."

Dana White reached 1,000,000 followers on his Twitter account, @danawhite, on Tuesday, Feb. 9. Fewer than 250 of Twitter's millions of users have broken the one-million mark. White's inclusion in that elite list is testament to the meteoric rise of UFC.

"I love Twitter because I get to talk directly to UFC fans," said White in a press release. "Their support is awesome and has made the sport what it is today."

Like many big-name celebrities and brands, White uses his Twitter account to break news and promote events. White made national news last year after a series of Tweets promising free tickets to fans drew large crowds in cities from New York to LA.

Amy Martin, founder of Digital Royalty, a social media brand management company, credits White with taking unique advantage of the instant medium. "Through Twitter, Dana uniquely humanizes the UFC brand," she said. "The genuine, two-way communication and interaction he has with his followers is rare among any brand."

UFC fighters and events routinely surface as top-10 trending topics on fight nights; UFC 100 was one of the top ten sports topics on Twitter in 2009—just below the NFL but above the world champion New York Yankees.

With social media rewriting the rules on human communication and interaction, it will be fascinating to see where this tweaked out Twitter and Facebook frenetic world take us next.

Follow Brian Oswald on Twitter @Boswald28