This is a weekly series that I’m hoping to help add some more relevance to the #FollowFriday (what’s this?) Twitter activity originally started through Lijit’s own Micah Baldwin to help connect Twitterers.
For this week’s selection, I’m continuing the series of folks I follow that I feel are making a difference or having some sort of impact in the industry and are people to get to know.
Beth Harte
Would you be shocked to know that I’ve only met Beth Harte once and it was during this past year’s South by Southwest Interactive conference? That’s the beauty of using Twitter, I suppose. You can connect with anyone and chat with them about their thoughts, ideas, projects and blog posts and when you see each other in real life, nothing steps out of place and you can continue the conversation.
Beth is a remarkable woman whom I’m proud to say is moving up in the world. She’s now become the Community Manager at MarketingProfs — a website that I receive emails about the latest and greatest marketing insights from — and has been everywhere when it comes to marketing and the web. She’s up to date on the latest trends, has a great sense of humor, and did I mention that she’s uber-smart? No? Well she’s uber-smart. You’ll get occasional gems of wisdom from her tweets and perhaps even some humorous ones as well. Someone to watch out for in the Twittersphere.
Dr. Mark Drapeau
Dr. Mark Drapeau is one of the foremost experts on Government 2.0 policy and issues that I follow on Twitter. He’s really smart when it comes to how the game is played in politics and also understands the idea of using social media to help better govern.
With the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s 44th president, so comes the new wave of technology that Obama used successfully in his rise to power & office. Dr. Drapeau understands all of that and has hosted at least one event to my knowledge about using social media to create “Gov 2.0”.
It’s one of those hot topics that you wish you had an expert around for…oh wait! You do! It’s Dr. Mark Drapeau!
Marie Domingo
Somehow I find myself seeing Marie Domingo everywhere I go. And I mean that in a good way. Nearly every event I go to in San Francisco and the Bay Area finds me seeing her and Harry McCracken around networking or organizing tweetups. She’s a remarkable force when it comes to promotion, public relations, and overall getting to know people. I’ve found her to be very helpful many times when I needed information.
Marie is a long-time public relations expert who specializes in technology, and social media and, according to her website, has had the pleasure of “spreading the word about breakthrough technology products and services for some of the world’s coolest companies “including Sony Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, Edelman, and Autodesk.”
You’re telling me that someone with that type of background is not someone you would follow? She’s connected to some great people and with that comes phenomenal insights that you can pick up on.
Brian Remmel
I first met Brian Remmel at a Social Media Club event and we’ve kept in touch ever since. He’s a great hard worker who has become, what I believe, a great asset and account guy at one of the leading public relations firms in the Bay Area, Future Works. Folks, if you want someone who knows his stuff and understands social media and promotion, then you have to follow Brian. His blog is also pretty interesting as well where he focuses on (again) social media. It’s got some pretty insightful stuff.
Cory O’Brien
Finally, I get to talk to someone cool, local, and not in PR! Cory O’Brien is someone who I think has the coolest job around. He works for an integrated marketing company called Swirl in San Francisco and gets to talk to clients about executing social media strategy. I’m certain that his agency has some remarkable projects for him to do and he does a great job of it. His tweets often relate to the social media realm and then there are some other oft-topic ones but that just makes following him that much more amusing and entertaining.
Oh…and to top it all off, he also has several blogs that he’s working on. One of which is on the Future of Advertising and also about t-shirts and other interesting things you might not have heard about.
Rachel Polish
Rachel Polish simply astounds me. She is absolutely brilliant and always cheerful every time I see her! I met Rachel at the sneak preview of Seesmic Desktop at the (where else?) Seesmic offices and it was there that I found out that we had something in common at the time — we were both in search of new opportunities. It was after talking to her that I knew that she was in for an optimistic forecast and before I knew it, I received an email from her recently announcing that she had got her next big break — and BOY was it a break! She’s now the Vice President of Digital Strategy at Ogilvy in San Francisco! Wow…simply amazing. I encourage you to chat with Rachel and you might just pick up at least a few bits of wisdom and insights. I sure have!
If you keep up with my blog posts, you’ll notice one that I wrote about Haamonii Shochu and an exercise that I participated in at a recent Social Media Club event. Well, many of the ideas and even the presentation to the rest of the group stemmed from Rachel herself. She’s a rockstar and has a great understanding of what people’s needs are. Outstanding person to know.
Do you want to know more about #FollowFriday and who other people are recommending? Then check out this great site created by Micah Baldwin.
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