Lady Gaga is on course to overtake Britney Spears as the world's most popular Twitter user.

As of Thursday (August 19) afternoon, Lady Gaga had 5,638,966 followers, while Spears was on 5,653,324.

Social Media Statistics service Famecount said that at the current rate of follower growth Lady Gaga would surpass Spears by tomorrow (August 20) at the latest.

She currently gains an average of 171,403 new followers every week.

Founder Daniel Dearlove told Gigwise the singer's popularity showed how social networks were “helping stars turbo charge their ascent to fame”.

Actor Ashton Kutcher is the third biggest Twitter user, while musicians Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift also have over three million followers each.

Lady Gaga recently became the first living person to gain more than 10 million Facebook fans. She has since crossed the 16 million mark.

Eminem and US president Barack Obama have since achieved the feat.

(by Jason Gregory)