Justin Bieber teaches Matt Lauer how to tweet, get followers

Did Matt Lauer really need to devote his first tweet ever to helping Justin Bieber sell his new album? Setting aside the advisability of that -- and Bieber did actually write it for him -- this morning's lesson in tweeting was a dramatic demonstration of the power of social media. (Plus, it was all in good fun, so no big deal)

A little after 8, Lauer confessed to Bieber -- who commandeered the plaza this morning for a much anticipated concert -- that he had never tweeted, but had started an account and had zero followers.

In fact, he had around 5,700 -- impressive for someone who had never tweeted -- then got Bieber to write his first tweet. Lauer also asked the Beebs to ask his 23 million followers to follow him. Beebs complied, and as of 9:45 this morning, Lauer had 70,357 followers. That's a fast clip indeed, though probably not quite as fast as Charlie Sheen, who over a year ago racked up nearly a million in a day's time.