By Cheryl Burgess, originally published on the Blue Focus Marketing Blog
In 2011, I teamed up with Tom Pick (@TomPick) and his Webbiquity blog to unveil the first annual #Nifty50 Awards. Our goal in designing these awards was to honor the top 50 women and top 50 men in social media. In that first year, we cast a wide net, honoring those whom we felt actively engaged as brand ambassadors on Twitter day in day out, exchanging valuable information, and just generally being good, helpful people. Last year, we narrowed our focus to honor the top 50 men and top 50 women engaging on Twitter on behalf of the tech sector.
This year, we wanted to target a specific group once again, and so we agreed to honor the top bloggers, authors, PR specialists, and journalists on Twitter. After reviewing all of your wonderful nominations over the summer, it’s now time to unveil the winners!
Now that Tom and I have compiled our lists, the word that keeps popping into my head is “community.” This isn’t just a list of 50 men who work in isolation; these are people who share strong social bonds with each other, who would be just as happy to celebrate the success of one of their colleagues as they would be for themselves. These thought leaders understand that the greatest product of a good idea is more good ideas, and it’s great to see that their generosity and thought leadership in online communities is being recognized.
I’m happy to say that I have had the privilege of experiencing this generosity firsthand. As we were writing our book The Social Employee: How Great Companies Make Social Media Work – Success Lessons from IBM, AT&T, Dell, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, and Domo on building a Social Culture (McGraw-Hill, August 2013) (@SocialEmployee) late last year and early this year, we were honored to receive excellent contributions from people like Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar), David Armano, (@Armano) David C. Edelman (@DavidEdelman), and Kevin Randall (@kevinbrandall) —just to name a few. These wonderful wordsmiths truly enlivened our own content, and we couldn’t be happier to see them make this list.
So without further ado, here are the 2013 #Nifty50 Men! Feel free to celebrate their achievement by dropping them a line on Twitter, and don’t forget to check out the Webbiquity blog for the 2013 #Nifty50 Women!
Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar
David Armano @armano
Jonathan Becher @jbecher
Sander Biehn @sanderbiehn
Michael Brenner @BrennerMichael
David Brier @davidbrier
Michael Brito @Britopian
Terry Brock @TerryBrock
Mark Burgess @mnburgess
Chris Carragher @cjcarragher
Dan Cristo @dancristo
Dino Dogan @dinodogan
Mike Edelhart @MikeEdelhart
David Edelman @davidedelman
Mark Fidelman @markfidelman
Sam Fiorella @samfiorella
Jez Frampton @jezframpton
Nis Frome @nisfrome
Sean Gardner @2morrowknight
Glen Gilmore @GlenGilmore
Andrew Grill @AndrewGrill
John Hagel @jhagel
Arik Hanson @arikhanson
Kent Huffman @KentHuffman
John L. Kennedy @johnlkennedy
Jure Klepic @jkcallas
Bryan Kramer @bryankramer
Simon Mainwaring @simonmainwaring
TJ McCue @TJMcCue
Billy Mitchell @billymitchell1
Jacob Morgan @jacobm
Tom Peters @tom_peters
Howard Pyle @howardpyle
Erik Qualman @equalman
Ajay Ramachandran @ajay
Andreas Ramos @Andreas_Ramos
Kevin Randall @KevinBrandall
Ron Ricci @RonRicciCisco
Tony Riches @tonyriches
Alex Romanovich @alexromanovich
Ted Rubin @TedRubin
Neal Schaffer @NealSchaffer
Dan Schawbel @DanSchawbel
Gary Schirr @ProfessorGary
Brian Slattery @BrianSlatts
Andy Smith @kabbenbock
Brian Solis @briansolis
Bill Strawderman @marketingbard
Todd Wilms @toddmwilms
Tony Zambito @TonyZambito
Cheryl Burgess (@ckburgess) CEO and CMO of Blue Focus Marketing, author of The Social Employee – How Great Companies Make Social Media Work, published by McGraw-Hill, in summer 2013. She is a social branding consultant with expertise in social business and social media. She is an expert blogger for AT&T Networking Exchange on social media. Proud to be an invited contributor to the Wharton FOA’s Advertising 2020 Project. Active Member of the Wharton Advertising 2020 Contributor Community.
She was awarded Wharton Future of Advertising’s MVP and praised as a “brilliant strategic thinker in the social media space.” Huffington Post honored her as one of 40 global women “Passionistas” for her “great business expertise and timeless blog posts.” Also, Huffington Post “Top 100 Business, Leadership and Technology Twitter Accounts You Must Follow.”
She was featured in Fast Company and Business Insider. Invited speaker on “Expanding Your Social Influence” at the AT&T Networking Leaders Academy Annual Conference. She is a four-time winner of the Twitter Shorty Award in Marketing [The New York Times hails this as the Oscar of Twitter], named Top 75 Twitter Women, 2012 Top 100 Branding Experts on Twitter, and a 100 Top Marketer on Twitter. Cheryl is a syndicated blogger. She is the co-founder of #Nifty50 Top Twitter Women and #Nifty50 Top Twitter Men. Google+
