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+