Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber is arguably the biggest pop star ever launched by YouTube.

The Canadian singer was catapulted from anonymity to superstardom in three years. Living in Stratford, Ontario, at the tender age of 13 he competed in "Stratford Idol" and posted the videos on YouTube. Ten million views later, he was signed by Usher. Following a breakthrough single, "One Time," with his debut release of "My World", Bieber had topped 100 million YouTube views.

On Twitter, the ultimate real-time metric of celebrity success moment by moment, Bieber's name was tweet-checked 84,846 times in one day. He occupies a solid holding pattern on Twitter's "Trending Topics" list.

Bieber set a recent record of 1,854,917 song plays in twenty-four hours. He has remained No.1 in Ad Age's "Top 10 Most Tweeted Brands" chart, other than a brief second place to the Oscars. MuchMusic named Bieber newcomer of the year and Celebuzz has declared him one of the decade's Top Ten YouTube superstars.

Justin Bieber is reaching way down the food chain to the littlest fruits - as evidenced by a viral video making the rounds: "3 Year Old Crying Over Justin Bieber," shot by the girl's mother and available on, of course, YouTube. Cody, the three year old girl, was subsequently booked on the Jimmy Kimmel show where she met the object of her affections. 

The roles of both Justin's mother - who uploaded his first videos when he was 13, and Cody's mother, are to be noted - at best. Have 'American Idol' and YouTube convinced us all that anyone can be an instant star?

Justin Bieber gets 11,000 new Twitter fans a day.

Justin Bieber appeared in Chicago March 24, sporting a custom-made t-shirt in support of manager Scott "Scooter". He post a Tweet alerting Bieberettes that a Roosevelt Field mall signing event had been cancelled, when thousands of Bieberettes descended on the shopping mall venue. The mob swelled to uncontrollable proportions and a teenage bystander was injured.

Bieber decided to back a new social network, called 'Shots of Me' — a network exclusively for selfies. The app will be marketed by RockLive.

Bieber has a massive teenage social media following. He has 46.5 million Twitter followers – making him the second most popular member of the micro-blogging website after fellow singer Katy Perry – and his first Instagram picture crashed the site’s servers.

The young star has earned $108 million over the past two years, and the future is looking bright as a result of the new release and ensuing tour.

Without a doubt, Bieber owes much of that success to Facebook and Twitter, which he’s used to spread word of his album and concerts to tens of millions of followers.