Oprah still more powerful than Lady Gaga despite Forbes list

Forbes’ annual Top 100 Celebrities power list puts Lady Gaga above Oprah Winfrey for the first time, but for all the wrong reasons.

Sure, Lady Gaga is winning when it comes to social media, but what does that really mean? How does that translate into power?

While Oprah maintains a TV empire, and has her own network, Gaga triumphs in the music industry with the most fans, and controversy. Yet Lady Gaga’s earning power is more than 300% less than Oprah. Having over 30 million fans on facebook also doesn’t necessarily mean 30 million people are going to respond to each message she uploads.

When it comes to TV, the experience is different. People are actively engaged rather than passively on facebook where user engagement is very, very low. I won’t tell you how low it is, but let's say a small percentage of fans are looking at her page.

Also, having your name featured more in the press doesn’t mean you have more power. Why? It depends who’s talking about you. If 10000 blogs are shouting out to Lady Gaga, but they get less than 10 views a day, it’ll have less impact than 1 article on the HuffingtonPost.

Despite this, I respect both Lady Gaga and Oprah equally, and I think more factors should be measured to make an accurate top 100 most powerful celebrities list.

Lady Gaga fans

Oprah fans

film industry network members