25 Social Media Experts You Need to Know In 2020
Written by Hugh McCabe | Blog
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Social Media Experts
Want to advance your career in social media marketing? Then start using the vast amounts of information available for learning – listening to podcasts, attending conferences, reading books, attending social media courses Johannesburg or following the top social media experts!
Social media is fast-paced and always shifting. No matter if you’re just beginning out in social media, or an experienced specialist, it’s always clever to keep an eye on what the best professionals are doing. I compiled a list of social media experts you need to know and follow.
Mari Smith
Mari Smith has become a social media expert on using Facebook as a marketing channel. She is the co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day and the lead author of The Relationship Age. Dubbed “the Pied Piper of the Online World” by FastCompany.com, Mari is a popular Social Media Keynote Speaker, Trainer and Thought Leader.
Mari has a strong ten-year background in the world of relationships and Internet technology, making social media her ideal arena. Through her consulting and training business, Mari helps independent professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners to accelerate their business profits using an integrated social marketing strategy, with particular focus on Facebook and Twitter.
After applying Mari’s proven Social Marketing methods, her clients typically experience a significant increase in traffic, subscribers, clients, affiliates, lucrative strategic alliances and targeted media attention.
Mari travels the United States and internationally to share her wisdom and provide social media keynotes and in-depth training. She has shared the stage with the likes of Sir Richard Branson, the Dalai Lama, President F.W. de Klerk, Tony Robbins, Dr Stephen R. Covey, and Paula Abdul.
A self-described “bubbly Scottish-Canadian” Mari currently lives in San Diego, California and has a penchant for turquoise and bling!
Jay Baer
Jay Baer is a marketing and customer service expert, and the New York Times best-selling author of six books.
7th-generation entrepreneur. Author of 6 best-selling business books. Founder of 5 multi-million dollar companies.
I’m the founder of Convince & Convert Consulting, a digital marketing and customer experience advisory firm that helps the world’s most iconic brands (The United Nations, 3M, Oracle, Cisco, Nike, Hilton, Caterpillar) gain and keep more customers.
I also run Convince & Convert Media, our education and resource hub for business executives. C&C Media includes our award-winning blog, our network of award-winning podcasts – including my long-running show, Social Pros – our weekly emails, and our video and webinar series. We work with partners to co-create winning content marketing and generate leads for their software solutions.
Recently inducted into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame, I travel often to give presentations to business groups around the world. I help audiences gain customers through word-of-mouth marketing and content marketing,
Jay Baer is a marketing and customer service expert, and the New York Times best-selling author of six books.
He is President of the global consulting firm Convince & Convert and has advised some of the most iconic organizations in the world, including Nike, Allstate, The United Nations, Oracle, and 35 of the FORTUNE 500.
A 7th generation entrepreneur, Jay is also an inductee into the CPAE Professional Speakers Hall of Fame.
Amy Porterfield
I got here by way of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles and Peak Performance Coach, Anthony Robbins. Great combo, right?
I started in the marketing and event arena with Harley-Davidson and from there worked for six years with Peak Performance Coach, Anthony Robbins. I’ve also consulted for top real estate moguls, celebrity chefs, travel industry executives, and Fortune 500 companies. I now speak, train and consult on such topics as social media and content marketing.
I live in Carlsbad, CA with two football-loving, Pittsburgh Steeler-obsessed boys: my husband, Hobie and my step-son, Cade.
Michael A. Stelzner
Michael Stelzner is the founder of Social Media Examiner, author of the books Launch and Writing White Papers, and the man behind large events, such as Social Media Marketing World.
He is also the host of the Social Media Marketing podcast, founder of the Social Media Marketing Society, and host of the weekly Morning Social Media Marketing Talk Show.
Joel Comm
Joel Comm is an entrepreneur, NY Times bestselling author, and new media innovator.
He is the best marketing expert on harnessing the power of social media and mobile applications to expand your brand’s reach and engage in active relationship marketing, Joel is a sought-after public speaker who leaves his audience inspired, entertained, and armed with strategic tools to create a new media campaign that will explode their business.
Mark W. Schaefer
Mark W. Schaefer is the author of the world’s best selling book on how to become a social media expert onTwitter (The Tao of Twitter), the first book on influencer marketing (Return On Influence), an essential book on blogging (Born to Blog (2013), a beloved introduction to social media marketing (Social Media Explained), a path-finding book on content marketing (The Content Code), and the most popular book on personal branding (KNOWN).
His new book “Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins” is a spell-binding look at the unexpected future of marketing, a future that most companies have failed to recognize.
Mark is a globally-recognized educator, keynote speaker, business consultant, and author and one of the best social media experts. His well-known blog {grow} (www.businessesGROW.com), is one of the most acclaimed marketing blogs of the world.
Mark has worked in global sales, PR, and marketing positions for nearly 30 years and now provides consulting services as Executive Director of U.S.-based Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He has advanced degrees in marketing and organizational development and holds seven patents.
Mark enjoys teaching social media marketing courses and is a faculty member of the graduate studies program at Rutgers University and has lectured at many universities including Oxford and Princeton. He is a popular public speaker and has appeared in the WSJ, New York Times, Wired, Forbes, Fortune, CBS News, and many other global media outlets.
Brian Solis
Brian Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent social media experts in business innovation and top social media experts. As a digital analyst, anthropologist, and futurist, he studies disruptive technology and its impact on business and society. More so, through his research reports, articles and books, he humanizes technology’s causal effect to help people see people differently and understand what to do about it.
Brian has authored several bestselling books including What’s the Future of Business (WTF), Engage!, and The End of Business as Usual.
His blog, BrianSolis.com, is ranked as a leading resource for insights into the future of business, new technology and marketing. He also actively contributes to Forbes, MarketWatch and AdAge.
Peg Fitzpatrick
Peg Fitzpatrick is a co-author of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users with Guy Kawasaki.
Social media is Peg’s passion. And her job. She shares her professional experience working day-to-day in the trenches of social media, marketing, and blogging.
She works with global brands and leaders in the social media sphere as an expert marketing guru. She’s spearheaded successful social-media campaigns for Motorola, Audi, Canva, Google, and Virgin as well as having been a brand ambassador for Kimpton Hotels, McDonald’s and currently Adobe. She works with the best brands and makes them even better!
Peg is a social media strategist working with Guy Kawasaki, the director of digital marketing for Kreussler Inc., and manages a total social media platform of over ten million each day with her own social platform over 1.5 million.
Peg grew up in East Rochester, New York. She currently lives with her husband of a zillion years, smart, gorgeous and funny off-spring, and a sassy little Yorkie in beautiful New Hampshire.
Jon Loomer
I started Jon Loomer Digital in the fall of 2011 with the goal of helping other businesses maximize “social media that makes a difference.” In a little over 17 months, I’ve built a profitable, self-branded business around a website that has generated 4 Million page views.
In January of 2013, JonLoomer.com was recognized as one of Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs of 2013. It is simply the most complete online resource of advanced Facebook marketing tips and tutorials, updated on nearly a daily basis.
Offline, my area of expertise is Facebook Business Coaching.
Viveka von Rosen
Viveka von Rosen is a huge fan of social networking and particularly LinkedIn. She started using LinkedIn in 2006 when she saw a presentation on the opportunities of Business Networking with LinkedIn. Having doubled her own business with F2F networking, she saw the immense potential of a business online networking site.
Viveka is known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert” and speaks to business owners, corporations, Legal Firms and associations on the benefits of marketing with social media, and in particular LinkedIn.
She is the host of the biggest LinkedIn chat on Twitter: #LinkedInChat (Recently quoted by Mashable as one of the top 10 business blogs) and co-moderator of LinkedStrategies, the largest LinkedIn strategy group on LinkedIn. She is constantly learning, sharing her expert opinion on social media and transferring social media skills and strategies to her tribe.
Viveka has 32K+ followers and a network of over 42 million people on LinkedIn, and 80K+ followers on Twitter. Her seminars, webinars and workshops have taught and trained well over 100,000 people.
She was also recently listed as Forbes 10 Most Influential Women in Social Media, Forbes 50 Most Influential People in Social Media, TopRank’s 25 Women Who Rock Social Media, Big Money Web’s 200 Most Fearless Women Online.
Marcus Sheridan
Called a “web marketing guru” by the New York Times, the Story of how Marcus Sheridan was able to save his swimming pool company, River Pools, from the economic crash of 2008 has been featured in multiple books, publications, and stories around the world.
Since this achievement Sheridan has become one of the famous social media experts and highly sought after global speaker and consultant in the digital sales and marketing space, working with hundreds of business and brands alike to become the most trusted voice of their industry.
Andrea Vahl
Andrea Vahl is a Social Media Coach, Speaker and Strategist. She is a co-author Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and how to be a social media expert.
She specializes in helping small businesses with their social media strategy and has worked with authors, realtors, restaurants, retail stores, medical health centres, online bloggers on how to become a social media marketing expert.
She also uses her improv comedy skills to blog as an entertaining character named Grandma Mary – Social Media Edutainer.
Ann Handley
Ann Handley speaks and writes about how you can rethink the way your business markets.
Cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in Social Media and recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers, Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, a training and education company with the largest community of marketers in its category.
She is a monthly columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, a member of the LinkedIn Influencer program, and the co-author of the best-selling book on content marketing, Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (Wiley, originally published 2011. Paperback 2012.) The book has been translated into nine languages, including Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese.
Her new book is Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content. She currently has more than 250,000 followers on Twitter and writes about content, marketing and life at the highly entertaining AnnHandley.com.
A pioneer in digital marketing and top internet marketing experts, Ann is the co-founder of ClickZ.com, which was one of the first sources of interactive marketing news and commentary. She started her career as a business journalist and editor.
Ann is based in Boston, Massachusetts
Christopher Penn
My name is Christopher S. Penn. I’m a bridge. I stand between different fields, professions, and ideas in order to help people on both sides understand each other. I can speak and sling code, but I’m not an IT professional. I can design campaign strategies and write copy, but I’m not a marketing professional. Where I provide value is in helping IT understand marketing and vice versa.
The same is true for the martial arts, for education, for all of the different worlds I work and play in. I play World of Warcraft, but take the lessons from a virtual battlefield and apply them to business. I take solutions from the dojo floor and bring them to marketing.
The net effect of all this is that fresh ideas, insights, and solutions are never far away because I can take a problem in one world, look for a similar problem with a solution in another world, and find solutions when “pure professionals” in just one world get stuck. That’s who I am, that’s what I do and one of the social media experts to follow.
I’m also the Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Blue Sky Factory email marketing, a co-founder of PodCamp with Chris Brogan, a co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee marketing podcast with John Wall, a professor of Internet Marketing and lead subject matter expert, curriculum designer, and professor of Advanced Social Media at the University of San Francisco online.
I’ve been a practitioner of the martial arts for 20 years now and currently hold a black belt in ninjutsu under the guidance of Sensei Mark Davis of the Boston Martial Arts Center.
Rebekah Radice
Rebekah Radice is the author of, “Social Media Mastery: A Comprehensive Guide to Strategic Growth,” a serial entrepreneur, social media experts, recognized social media leader, and the founder of RadiantLA, a premier training and development company.
As a speaker, she’s been featured on CBS Los Angeles, ABC, and at the NATO International Summit. She’s listed as a Top Ten Social Media and Content Marketer by Onalytica, and most recently, a Top Marketer of 2017 by Brand24.
Rebekah has been blogging since 2004 on one of the top social media blogs, rebekahradice.com – voted a “2016 and 2015 Top 10 Social Media Blog” by Social Media Examiner.
With her early days spent on morning radio, Rebekah has honed her skills at engaging and reaching an audience.
She is passionate about coaching, having trained thousands of business professionals on how to use social media, digital and Inbound marketing strategically, allowing them to maximize, prioritize, and monetize their online efforts.
In addition to being a popular social media and digital marketing specialist, Rebekah has also founded four companies. Each one leveraging social media for specific business growth
Andy Crestodina
Andy Crestodina is the co-founder and the Strategic Director of Orbit Media, an award-winning 38-person web design company in Chicago. He is also a top-rated speaker at marketing conferences around the country.
Andy loves to translate his 17 years of web marketing experience in web marketing advice that anyone can understand. He’s written hundreds of articles for many of the top sites in the industry.
He also writes Orbit’s beloved, bi-weekly marketing newsletter. Favourite topics include email marketing, search optimization, social media, analytics and content strategy.
Nicholas Kusmich
I help high growth companies (between $10M-$50M) scale their new client/customer acquisition using Facebook Advertising.
International Speaker, Founder of the H2H Media Group and the Marketers Council and creator of The Art Of Lead Generation, I’m best known as the World’s Leading Facebook Advertising Strategist and for having the highest ROI’s in the industry (up to 30, 973.32%).
I work with A-List clients including top thought-leaders, NYT Best Selling Authors, Top Inc 500 and fast-growth companies creating advertising campaigns that convert.
I specialize in using my proprietary Contextual Congruence methodology, which creates mass conversions on social platforms.
Seth Godin
Seth Godin is the author of nineteen international bestsellers that have been translated into over 35 languages, and have changed the way people think about marketing and work. He is one of the top 10 social media experts. For a long time, Unleashing the Ideavirus was the most popular ebook ever published, and Purple Cow is the bestselling marketing book of the decade.
He’s a recent inductee to the Marketing Hall of Fame, and also a member of the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and (go figure), the Guerrilla Marketing Hall of Fame.
His book, Tribes, was a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It’s about the most powerful form of marketing–leadership–and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter.
His book Linchpin came out in 2008 and was the fastest-selling book of his career. Linchpin challenges you to stand up, do work that matters and race to the top instead of the bottom. More than that, though, the book outlines a massive change in our economy, a fundamental shift in what it means to have a job.
Since Linchpin, Godin has published two more books, Poke the Box and We Are All Weird, through his Domino Project. He followed these with The Icarus Deception via Kickstarter, which reached its goal in less than three hours. Joined by Watcha Gonna Do With That Duck and V is for Vulnerable, those books are now widely available. In late 2014, he announced his latest, What To Do When It’s Your Turn, sold directly from his website.
In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth was founder and CEO of Squidoo.com. His blog (find it by typing “seth” into Google) is the most popular marketing blog in the world. Before his work as a writer and blogger, Godin was Vice President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, a job he got after selling them his pioneering 1990s online startup, Yoyodyne.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary Vaynerchuk builds businesses. Fresh out of college he took his family wine business and grew it from a $3M to a $60M business in just five years. Now he runs VaynerMedia, one of the world’s hottest digital agencies.
Along the way he became a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist, investing in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and Birchbox before eventually co-founding VaynerRSE, a $25M investment fund.
Gary also currently hosts The #AskGaryVee Show, a way of providing as much value as possible by taking questions about social media, entrepreneurship, startups, and family businesses and giving his answers based on a lifetime of building successful, multi-million dollar companies. The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.
Gary is also a prolific public speaker, delivering keynotes at events like Le Web, and SXSW, which you can watch on his YouTube channel.
He was named to both Fortune and Crain’s 40 under 40 lists in consecutive years and has been profiled in the New York Times, Fortune, and Inc.
Neil Patel
I am a New York Times bestselling author. The Wall Street Journal calls me a top influencer on the web, Forbes says I am one of the top 10 marketers, social media experts and Entrepreneur Magazine says I created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. I was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
I’ve helped Amazon, Microsoft, Airbnb, Google, Thomson Reuters, Viacom, NBC, Intuit, Zappos, American Greetings, General Motors, and SalesForce grow through marketing.
My blog about marketing generates 3 million visitors per month (51% of them spend money on paid ads), my Marketing School podcast generates over 1 million listens per month, my YouTube channel about marketing has over 10 million views, I have 900,000 Facebook fans and I have over 300,000 Twitter followers.
I’ve spoken at over 310 conferences and companies. From speaking at Facebook to Thomson Reuters, and every major growth marketing conference.
Jeff Bullas
Jeff is an entrepreneur, blogger, author, marketer and keynote speaker and works with brands to optimize their global digital brand with emerging technologies, content, social media and digital marketing.
His mission: “Inspire and educate people to win at business and life in a digital world”.
He has spent most of his career involved with information technologies, telecommunications and the web.
Since starting his blog he has educated and inspired over 25 million people to transform their lives and businesses.
Achievements include: Listed on Forbes as one of the “Top 20 Influencers of CMOs” – 2017, Ranked by Apollo Research in the “Top 20 Influencers of Digital Marketers in the USA” – 2016, #1 Global “Digital Marketing Influencer” – 2016, #1 Content Marketing Influencer from 6M+ daily web updates in 2015 by Appinions, Listed as the #1 Content Marketing Influencer by Onalytica – 2016 & 2015, Featured in Inc.com’s “20 Digital Marketing Experts to Follow on Twitter” – 2015, Ranked #8 on Forbes “The World’s Top 40 Social Marketing Talent” – 2014, World’s #1 Business Blogger, Author of the book which appeared on several best selling lists on Amazon – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media”
Kim Garst
Kim Garst is the Co-Founder and CEO of Boom! Social, a corporate branding and social media consulting firm that services over 32,000 subscribers and 100+ clients. She is extremely passionate about sharing how ‘you can do’ social media.
Ms Garst was recently named by Forbes as one of the Top 50 Social Media Experts. A dynamic speaker and trainer, she also provides social media keynotes and in-depth courses to entrepreneurs and corporations. Her impressive track record and talent for teaching has just earned her a coveted spot on the Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs of 2013.
She was also named the #1 Social Media Blogger by Kred.com and voted one of the top Leading Mom’s Businesses in 2012. National and international brands of all sizes hire Kim’s company with one goal in mind: to accelerate profits by integrating proven online marketing and social media strategies, as well as keeping them in step with trends and constant changes of the social media world.
Kim, as a social marketing expert, has an extensive following on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. She is known to be a voice of authority in the world of online and social media marketing.
Neal Schaffer
Neal Schaffer, named a Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer two years in a row, is the creator of Advertising Age’s Top 100 Global Marketing Blog Windmill Networking (recently rebranded as Maximize Social Business), and a global speaker on social media who also teaches as part of Rutgers University’s Mini-MBA in Social Media Marketing Program.
As a leading social media strategist, he is one of the social media experts to follow on Twitter. Neal has created social media strategies, coached implementation, and helped train dozens of companies, from startups and small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises and even a Grammy Award-winning musician.
Maximize Your Social is Neal’s third book on social media. Neal has previously written two award-winning books on LinkedIn. His work has been recognized by the media, appearing in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Yahoo! and the American Express OPEN Forum.
A graduate of Amherst College, he is also fluent in Chinese and Japanese and currently resides in Irvine, California, where he proudly serves on the marketing committee for the United Way of Orange County.
Pam Moore
Keynote speaker social media, digital marketing, leading social media experts, branding, content strategies, technology transformation, women empowerment, entrepreneurship, motivation & more.
Forbes #5 Social Power Influencer – 2 million followers across my social platforms, 100k monthly downloads of my Social Zoom Factor podcast. I know how to help you leverage social media to achieve your goals.
Before becoming an entrepreneur in 2010 I spent 15+ years working in corporate America at startups to Fortune 10 brands building multi-million dollar businesses and doing social before it was called social media!
As an international keynote speaker, trainer, consultant, strategist I help business leaders and event organizers increase ROI.
As the CEO, co-founder of Marketing Nutz, a social media, digital, branding training and consulting agency we help small and large business leverage social and digital technologies to increase brand awareness and achieve defined business goals.
Joe Pulizzi
Joe Pulizzi is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and podcaster. He’s the founder of multiple startups, including the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), the leading content marketing educational resource for enterprise brands, recognized as the fastest growing business media company by Inc. magazine in 2014 and 2015.
CMI is responsible for producing Content Marketing World, the largest content marketing event in the world (held every September in Cleveland, Ohio), as well as the leading content marketing magazine, Chief Content Officer. He began using the term “content marketing” back in 2001, now the fastest-growing internet marketing industry.
CMI also offers advisory services for innovative organizations such as HP, AT&T, Petco, LinkedIn, SAP, the Gates Foundation and many others. Content Marketing Institute was sold in June 2016 to UBM, a multi-billion dollar events and media company out of London.
Joe is the winner of the 2014 John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Content Council. Joe’s third book, Epic Content Marketing was named one of “Five Must Read Business Books of the Year” by Fortune Magazine. His fourth book, Content Inc., has been a top direct marketing best-seller since September of 2015.
Joe has also co-authored two other books, Get Content Get Customers and Managing Content Marketing. Joe has spoken at more than 400 locations in 16 countries advancing the practice of content marketing.
He’s delivered keynote speeches for events and organizations including SXSW, NAMM, Fortune Magazine’s Leadership Summit, Nestle, General Motors, Oracle, DuPont, SAP, HP and Dell.
Joe not only writes one of the most influential content marketing blogs in the world, but he also writes a column for Entrepreneur.com and is a LinkedIn Influencer. You can also hear Joe on his podcasts, “This Old Marketing” and “Content Inc.”. If you ever meet him in person, he’ll be wearing orange.
Up for sharing the names of your top 1–3 favourite social media experts and why you love them in the comments below?
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TOPIC: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING