On the eve of Twitter's initial public offering (IPO), Katy Perry has become the new poster girl for the social media site after her follower figures pushed past Justin Bieber's to reach a massive 46.61 million. The news that Perry is Twitter's most popular user coincides with the company's imminent float on the New York Stock Exchange. The microblogging network intends to price its shares on Wednesday for trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, Reuters' sources report.

Katy Perry
Hands Up If You Follow Katy Perry On Twitter!

The website stands to make a fortune estimated in the billions from the IPO after it said on Monday that it was boosting the price range of its IPO to $23 to $25 per share from an earlier range of $17 to $20 per share with the intention to sell 70 million shares. However, Perry on Twitter may not be as popular as she first seems.

Katy Perry Killer Queen
Perry Has Overtaken Justin Bieber To Become The Current Most Popular User.

According to Statuspeople.com, about 46 per cent of Katy Perry's Twitter followers are fake and 40 per cent are inactive. The website analyses which of a user's followers are spam accounts, inactive, or "fake" (having never tweeted). Though most users will find these bot accounts annoying, they do a great job of making it look as though more people are using Twitter than are actively engaging in Tweets.

Katy Perry iheartradio
Will Perry's Popularity Help Persuade Potential Investors To Purchase Shares?

When each of the top ten Twitter accounts is cross-referenced with Statuspeople.com, a very different view of popularity is painted. The "real" figures show that Perry is only fifth in the rankings with 6,517,082 active users following her, reports Noise11. Ahead of Perry sits Instagram, Lady GaGa, Justin Bieber and YouTube with more of these true followers.

It's unclear yet whether all these fake accounts will skew Twitter's stock market interest predictions but it is clear that they are serving well to give celebrities falsely inflated egos. Shame Twitter can't float on that.