If 2007 witnessed the launch of two star kids in Bollywood, it also saw the debut of Bollywood on Twitter. Ranbir Kapoor (son of Rishi Kapoor) and Sonam Kapoor (daughter of Anil Kapoor) made their debut in the Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed movie Saawariya in 2007.

The film pioneered the use of Twitter for its promotion, marking the advent of Bollywood on the platform.

Barely 18 months after the launch of Twitter, the @Saawariya handle came on board, in October 2007.

Until the end of January 2008, @Saawariya had posted 299 tweets, but had attracted a measly 285 followers.

Recognising the huge fan following that Bollywood and cricket command in India, Twitter launched a short code for the country.

In a blog post in January 2008, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said: “We know there’s lots of folks in India who like Twitter. We’ve already noticed some cricket action and at least one Bollywood movie.”

This post gave a link to the Twitter handle of Saawariya .

The last tweet of @Saawariya on January 29, 2008 said: “After noticing Saawariya , Twitter team has decided India Shortcode - 5566511 http://blog.twitter.com/”

However, most of the big names in the industry made their entry into Twitter after 2009.

Stars on Twitter

While Abhishek Bachchan joined Twitter in November 2009, his father Amitabh Bachchan joined in May 2010. The Bajirao Mastani heroines Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone joined the social media platform in January 2009 and January 2010, respectively.

The Khans –– Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman –– joined Twitter in November 2009, January 2010 and April 2010, respectively ( image at left ).

The first tweet of Sonam Kapoor (who debuted in Saawariya ) in June 2009 was: “I cant believe I gave in to this!” Ranbir Kapoor (who too debuted in the movie) is still not on Twitter.

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