Charlie Sheen, Twitter, and how he got to have 1 million followers

The trending topic #winning, started by actor Charlie Sheen has certainly caught on among Twitter users.

Sheen joined the social networking site Tuesday night and the number of people following him has skyrocketed. As of Thursday afternoon, Sheen has more than 1,275, 000 followers.

The actor's Twitter bio says, Born Small ... Not Huge ... Winning ... Bring it! (unemployed winner). He is currently following 25 people, which include celebrities Will Arnett, Nicky Hilton, Alyssa Milano, Sarah Silverman, and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst.

One of the first few people Sheen followed was ad.ly's Chris Ovitz, who connects celebrities with endorsement deals on Twitter and ad.ly's owner Omid Ashtari.

Forbes released a story today revealing the truth behind Sheen joining Twitter. Forbes reports that Sheen got a lot of help from Ad.ly.

Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh said that a friend of Sheen's reached out to Ad.ly's celebrity team and said Sheen would like to get on Twitter.

Charlie said he wants to communicate directly with his fans and bypass the media, Gullov-Singh said via Forbes.

After Sheen's friend contacted Ad.ly, Ad.ly reached out to Twitter and secured Sheen's verified account. The Ad.ly team then spent several hours on the phone with Sheen teaching him the ins and outs of using Twitter. They taught him tools such as hashtags, bit.ly, twitpic, and how to build an audience.

During the call, Charlie was focused and really excited about communicating directly with his fans. He had seen other celebrities join Twitter and he realized it was the best way for him to tell his side of the story directly to his audience, Gullov-Singh said.

He's been posting pictures, that really helps. The first picture he's posted has been viewed over a million times.

Gullov Singh went on to say that the rapid growth of Sheen's Twitter account is unprecedented.

The purpose of Ad.ly is to deliver celebrity endorsements when they're needed.

All of his tweets have been organic so far. Right now it's all about helping him get started. We really didn't think he'd have 900,000 followers in 24 hours. It's inevitable that brands will be lining up to work with him. That time will come sooner rather than later.

The endorsement offer came soon after as the people behind Just Chill, a stress=relieving beverage, offered the Two and a Half Men actor $3 million to promote the drink.