Twitter milestone as Express & Star gains 50k followers

For Saddlers superfan Mark Johnson, January 27, 2015, will forever be an historic date - the day his team finally made it to Wembley.

But Mr Johnson made a bit of history himself that night by becoming the Express & Star's 50,000th Twitter follower.

Since then the numbers have grown even further, with almost a thousand extra follower signing up since then.

The 54-year-old father of two from Cheslyn Hay signed up to the social media site six months ago and followed @ExpressandStar on the night Walsall triumphed over Preston to walk the road to Wembley.

He joined Twitter after learning from his family and friends that it was the best way to get the latest breaking news.

"I didn't understand how Twitter worked at the time but as I don't like Facebook I thought I'd give it a try," said Mr Johnson. "Originally I kept up to date with Walsall FC as it was easier than to keep looking at their website, but I soon started to follow people I knew, or with whom I shared interests or posted interesting tweets.

"As I learned more about Twitter, I've been able to use it more and particularly like retweets for competition entries or tweets I find interesting or amusing. I particularly like the wide range of pictures posted.

"Following Walsall's victory and success on making it to Wembley, I have been a lot busier on here and have followed or been followed by more tweeters - hence becoming a follower of the E&S."

As well as appearing in our Twitter feed, Mr Johnson also featured in the newspaper itself and on expressandstar.com celebrating the milestone win.

He said he was 'ecstatic' and that, as a lifelong Saddlers fan, he had 'waited all his life for this moment'.

When asked if he would be attending Wembley, his response was: "I missed out on going to the Millennium Stadium in 2001 when we were up against Reading on the play-offs for the Championship, because we were on holiday. But I'm not missing this time."

Manned by our dedicated digital team and senior journalists, we highlight the biggest news stories of the day on our Twitter feed as they happen, as well as giving a unique insight into how the country's biggest regional daily newspaper is put together.

All of our news and sport journalists, news editors and senior editors, are now highly active on Twitter, interacting with readers as they break news and report live from events across the region, as well as details of stories pouring in to HQ.

And don't forget - you don't need to be on Twitter to keep up-to-date with what we're tweeting about. We run a live newsfeed pulling in the top breaking news from the web and from our reporters who are out and about, as well as hosting an Express & Star Newsroom Live section, which pulls in tweets from all our reporters.

And, as big stories break and large scale events take place - such as the funeral of Wolves legend Sir Jack Hayward - we also run separate live streams, giving readers a view of all the updates from a variety of sources as they come in. These feeds also give fans and members of the public a chance to feed in their tributes or views of the scene.