The Dalai Lama beats out Barack Obama and Lady Gaga on Forbes’s list of “most influential Twitter celebrities”

What do the Dalai Lama and Rick Warren, the megachurch evangelist, have in common? They are the only religious leaders to make Forbes’s “Top 20 Most Influential Twitter Celebrities.”

The Dalai Lama–whose office set up a Twitter account in February–ranked #5, beating the likes of President Obama, singer Lady Gaga, and comedian Conan O’Brien—who all placed lower on the list.

To generate the top 20 list, Forbes hired the research firm Klout to help determine the influence of Twitter celebs. From Forbes:

The research firm ranked individuals based on their klout, or social media influence, which is basically a measure of the “impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph,” as the company defines it. The higher the klout score, the more influential the celebrity.

According to the Forbes list, the Dalai Lama was given a Klout score of 90.6 out of a possible 100. In addition to its two religious leaders, the Forbes list bounces between pillars of pop culture (Justin Beiber ranks #1) to novelists (Paulo Coelho ranks #2) to critics (Roger Ebert snuck in at #19).

For the full Forbes list click here.