Celebrities are amongst the thousands of people using Twitter and the #TheBigTweet to raise awareness of missing children for International Missing Children day

Stephen Fry, JK Rowling and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon are all showing their support for missing children as part of a major social media campaign.

#TheBigTweet has seen people around the world tweeting about children who are currently missing in honour of International Missing Children Day today (25 May).

Fry, who is patron of the charity Missing People, said: “I am going to be throwing my weight behind the charity Missing People’s Big Tweet for Missing Children for the fourth year running.

"It is a very simple concept and there is simply no excuse not to get involved. Every half hour for 24 hours throughout International Missing Children’s Day, the charity will be posting Twitter appeals with the aim of finding missing children.

"By retweeting these appeals, we can all help extend the platform that might bring those children home. Circulating the details of these children through the social media site is such a simple, yet incredibly effective way to give the appeals as much coverage as possible.

"I was so impressed by how the world of Twitter responded last year – an incredible 58,000 retweets in one day. The result? Two missing children were found. Invaluable."

Harry Potter author JK Rowling was one of the first celebs to support the campaign. She tweeted: “Today is International Missing Children's Day. Please help by RTing @missingpeople's appeals - we can help find lost children. #TheBigTweet.”

First Minster Nicola Sturgeon retweeted a tweet about Sandy Davidson, who went missing from Irvine 39 years ago when he was just four years old.

She followed with: “Re last RT, as a 6yo in #Irvine at the time, I well remember Sandy's disappearance. RT to help find out what happened to him #TheBigTweet.”

Music mogul Simon Cowell also joined in with “It's that time of year again - @missingpeople's #TheBigTweet Hopefully we can reunite more missing children with their families this year.”

According to Missing People, a staggering 140,000 children go missing in the UK every year.

Every year on International Missing Children’s Day (25 May), we harness the power of Twitter to help find missing children via The Big Tweet for Missing Children.

All you have to do to take part in The Big Tweet is follow Missing People and look out for the hashtag #TheBIgTweet on 25 May 2015 and retweet appeals for missing children.