India’s Test skipper Virat Kohli was named the most popular celebrity of 2016 in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 List on Friday. Kohli, who is arguably the best batsman in world cricket across all three formats of cricket, was ahead of superstars like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list. Virat finished third behind Salman and Shah Rukh in annual earnings, but he was at the top of the table in terms of popularity.
Fame rankings are calculated based on the celebrities’ media visibility across print and television and also their social media reach.
According to Forbes’ fame rankings, Test cricket captain Virat Kohli is the most popular celebrity and this has improved his earnings rank to No 3 with a reported Rs 134.44 crore earnings. In 2015, Kohli was ranked No 7.
Here we look at some of the reasons why Virat Kohli was named the most popular celebrity in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 List:
1) Virat Kohli gave more “trending” performances than Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan.
Virat Kohli was at the top of his game in the calendar year 2016. Match after match, series after series, Virat Kohli gave many match-winning performances for India. Kohli has a massive fan following on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter and after every good performance his fans and followers made his the most trending topic. Salman Khan and Shah Rukh trend on social media only after their movies or if there is any controversy, but cricket happens more often and Virat Kohli is the ace batsman and poster boy of Indian cricket.
2) Virat Kohli is very active on social media.
Virat Kohli enjoys a massive fan following on social media Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He keeps sharing his selfies and fitness videos with his fans through social media. Kohli keeps sharing his pictures from training sessions with his teammates and this leads more engagement with his fans on social media.
3) Star, on and off the field.
We all know that Virat Kohli is, arguably, the biggest star in world cricket. In the year 2016, he gave many match-winning performances for India. But, he also made news with his off-field performances. From Harbhajan Singh’s wedding reception in Delhi to Yuvraj Singh’s extravaganza in Goa, Virat Kohli was always the start of the show. Kohli gave brilliant dance performances at Yuvraj Singh’s wedding and all the videos that came out went viral on the internet.
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