Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Let's face it ... Twitter is a social media phenomenon that won't stop growing any time soon.  Estimates place the number of users at around 500 hundred million.

In fact, it's getting more and more use even by celebrities who are no longer with us.  Whether it's attributable to their estates, companies managing their image rights, or other-worldly influences, just because someone is dead doesn't mean they can't have an active Twitter account.

This topic got us thinking, and researching.  What are the most-followed official Twitter accounts of deceased celebrities?  Trial & Heirs has the answer.

We've done our best to only include actual celebrity accounts.  If you use Twitter and want to follow all of these, we created a Twitter list with all ten.

(All totals are as of February 27, 2012.)

Michael Jackson / Twitter

1. Michael Jackson

@michaeljackson

New York, NY

verified celebrity Twitter account

631,085 followers

371 tweets

Michael Joseph Jackson died at age 50 on June 25, 2009 from acute propofol intoxication.

His estate uses the account actively, posting trivia, news, commemorative items, and more.  Recent tweets include a tribute to Whitney Houston and concert tour information.

Amy Winehouse / Twitter

2. Amy Winehouse

@amywinehouse

London

verified celebrity Twitter account

547,759 followers

111 tweets

Amy Jade Winehouse passed away from alcohol poisoning at age 27, on July 23, 2011.

In addition to promoting her charitable foundation and album sales, her account includes promotional news and videos.  The tweeting is sporadic, and most recently included Winehouse-related Grammy tweets.

Our Amy Winehouse estate article is here.

Bob Marley / Twitter

3. Bob Marley

@bobmarley

"Higher"

verified celebrity Twitter account

162,788 followers

250 tweets

Robert Nesta Marley died at age 36 on May 11, 1981 from skin cancer.

His family maintains his official twitter account, including a variety of videos, discussion topics, and Marley family re-tweets.

Our recent Trial & Heirs article about Bob Marley's estate is here.

Tupac Shakur / Twitter

4. Tupac Shakur

@2pac

no location given

verified celebrity Twitter account

66,587 followers

396 tweets

Tupac Amaru Shakur was only 25 when he died of multiple gunshot wounds on September 13, 1996.

Far less promotional than other estate accounts, Tupac's estate posts frequent tweets discussing a variety of topics, such as Grammy winners, videos and trivia about Tupac.

Elvis Presley / Twitter

5. Elvis Presley

@ElvisPresley

Memphis, TN

verified celebrity Twitter account

56,021 followers

2,907 tweets

Elvis Aaron Presley was declared dead on August 16, 1977, at age 42.

His frequently-updated account features trivia, interviews, photographs, videos and more.  With promotional content kept to a minimum, it's a must-follow for Elvis fans. Google+
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialandheirs/2012/02/27/top-ten-celebrity-twitter-accounts-from-the-grave/
www.forbes.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-04
89928
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:QQRRXZCGOOQFDAWOUZF57AUHZ7YBR7VC
<urn:uuid:dd6ac07f-4208-45d4-8a6f-2d965aeae715>
2017-01-17T12:12:27Z
23.6.73.244
sha1:V7CMPABTELVLRRSJPVOZGE7LDMPCSFEJ
<urn:uuid:c7db8ca1-2bb5-4ac1-a455-8c8134d31e56>
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialandheirs/2012/02/27/top-ten-celebrity-twitter-accounts-from-the-grave/
response
<urn:uuid:10d683b2-d559-4030-879b-7fa324a791b9>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-04
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for January 2017
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf