The popularity of a celebrity, a business or a politician can sometimes be gauged by how many followers they have on micro-blogging site Twitter.

But a new study by a social media marketing company claims that even some of the biggest names in the world may be faking their follower numbers, including the UK Prime Ministerial Twitter page.

 Australian-based company, usocial.net, says there is substantial evidence that many celebrities and organisations may have increased their follower numbers by artificial means.

uSocial’s CEO, Leon Hill, said: "Using only publicly-available information and our own knowledge of how Twitter works, there’s no doubt that many of the biggest names on Twitter are artificially-increasing their followers."

Some of those uSocial has named include Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Justin Bieber, Martha Stewart, the UK PMs’ Twitter page (10 Downing Street) and more.

In total, uSocial says that, of the top 100 users on Twitter with the largest following numbers, it’s extremely likely that 15 of those have artificially-inflated follower numbers, with the possibility of ten more unconfirmed.