Modern day entrepreneurs have utilised various social media platforms to help to expand their empires. Sometimes this is in terms of being seen to do good or positive things; at other time more infamous practices are highlighted.
As the emergence of entrepreneurs continues to grow in the influencer sphere, the website Business Name Generator has researched follow count and social sentiment towards 20 business personalities online to reveal which entrepreneurs are among the most influential in 2023. The output has been provided to Digital Journal.
To gather the data, the company created a list of 60 of the world’s most popular entrepreneurs from blogs and articles. Each entrepreneur’s social media following on Instagram and Twitter was then analysed to reveal the most followed.
The outcome is:
The top 10 most influential entrepreneurs online in 2023
| Rank | Name | Number of social followers | % of positive tweets | % of negative tweets | Total influential index score |
| 1 | Sheryl Sandberg | 1,261,900 | 74% | 4% | 6.94 |
| 2 | Gary Vaynerchuk | 13,100,000 | 75% | 10% | 6.75 |
| 3 | Russell Brunson | 1,277,700 | 62% | 11% | 5.74 |
| 4 | Elon Musk | 135,100,000 | 25% | 23% | 5.68 |
| 5 | Brendon Burchard | 1,196,100 | 65% | 15% | 5.52 |
| 6 | Brené Brown | 5,672,000 | 56% | 19% | 4.85 |
| 7 | Simon Sinek | 3,287,300 | 55% | 18% | 4.84 |
| 8 | Daymond John | 1,997,400 | 51% | 16% | 4.75 |
| 9 | Steven Bartlett | 2,645,000 | 52% | 17% | 4.71 |
| 10 | Ratan Tata | 20,900,000 | 21% | 8% | 4.12 |
The outcome shows that Sheryl Sandbergis the most influential entrepreneur in 2023 based on a combined 1.2 million following and 74 percent positive social sentiment. Following this, Gary Vaynerchuk is the most loved entrepreneur according to sentiment analysis, with 75 percent of Tweets about the marketing mogul being positive.
The top five most loved entrepreneurs on Twitter
When considering positive social sentiment exclusively, Gary Vaynerchuk and Sherly Sandberg occupy the first and second positions, respectively.
| Rank | Name | % of positive tweets |
| 1 | Gary Vaynerchuk | 75% |
| 2 | Sheryl Sandberg | 74% |
| 3 | Brendon Burchard | 65% |
| 4 | Russell Brunson | 62% |
| 5 | Brené Brown | 56% |
Not so much loved, but Elon Muskis the most followed entrepreneur on social media, with a combined following ofover 135 million. At the extreme end of the unlovedLord Alan Sugar receives the highest number of negative tweets.
The five most trolled entrepreneurs on Twitter
| Rank | Name | % of negative tweets |
| 1 | Lord Alan Sugar | 41% |
| 2 | Sir Richard Branson | 34% |
| 3 | Bill Gates | 32% |
| 4 | Oprah Winfrey | 31% |
| 5 | Tony Robbins | 29% |
The founder of the Virgin Group, Sir Richard Branson, has earned the second spot in the list of entrepreneurs with the highest percentage of tweets carrying negative sentiment, at 34 percent. Despite being a British business magnate who has expanded into various sectors, ranging from music to travel and beyond, Branson has received criticism online for some of his ventures, including his recent foray into space and here some people have called him out for the environmental impact of his space projects.
