Lady GaGa has beaten Justin Bieber to become the first twitter user to reach 20 million followers.

The 'Born This Way' hitmaker - whose real name is Stephanie Germanotta - joined twitter in 2008 and has now attracted more than 20.1 million followers on her @ladygaga social networking account.

Gaga - who overtook Britney Spears as the most followed person on the website in August 2010 - has two million more followers than the 'Never Say Never' hitmaker.

Since May 2011 the 25-year-old star has attracted 10 million additional fans to follow her tweets, putting her well ahead of the likes of fellow singers Katy Perry - who has more than 15.5 million followers - Shakira and Rihanna, who both have more than 14.5 million.

As well as her mass appeal on twitter, Gaga - who has not tweeted since March 3 - has eight million fans on Facebook and more than 800,000 'circles' on Google+.