Ten Unsung Heroes of Twitter!

June 30, 2009 in admin
Tags: case studies, Twitter

This article was inspired by Belinda Ang. It was going to be a challenge, where she’d try to do the same thing, but she backed out. Alas. Would’ve been fun!

Dr. Ron's Top Ten Twitterers by category

Twitter has this “tradition” called Follow Friday. On Friday you get in there and recommend that others follow your favorite people, sometimes with reasons. Unfortunately, this tradition has been completely screwed up by:

• Spammers, and even by well-meaning people, who want us to follow everyone in the world so their own follower counts go up.
• Well-meaning people who, when they see they’ve gotten a #followfriday recommendation, retweet it, so they get another one. Maybe more.
• Recommendations given to the same people over and over, people who have tens of thousands of followers. Guy Kawasaki, for instance, is an extremely valuable Twitterer, but he doesn’t need MY puny recommendation for a thousand people to find him in the next couple weeks.
• Recommendations given by members of “mastermind groups” to their fellow members, who are often people who do not engage and offer little in original content, but who know how to game Twitter society for attention.

That ain’t me. Belinda posted a top-100 list of her own, and many of them IMPO fit the above categories too closely. So after I told her this, she said “I’d LOVE to see yours.” LOL Mine’s here. Ten people who offer original content. Who are, from where I sit, genuinely caring. Who engage the community in the hope of improving it. Who never spam. And who most likely will follow you back. In short, they’re model Twitterers, at least to me. And as you can see, their avatars are above.

Sense of Humor: JackInChicago

Twitter is oh, so well-suited to the one-liner, and Jack Benton collects and shares them freely. Though he faces his own problems, he does so with a shared smile.

Food: ChefBud

Bud Thomas shares recipes, food tips, and interacts with everyone in his path. This guy is a must for foodies.
Honorable Mention: sanaacooks

Politics: katiewitt

Katie Witt is running for city council in Longmont, Colorado. She’s not much of an engager or RT-er. But what she DOES is chronicle the political process on the city level, step-by-step. There is nobody on Twitter doing
a better job of teaching politics. That includes both the President and his opponent in the last election.

Marketing: mariaduron

Maria Duron knows what she’s doing, and she’s completely transparent about it. She knows how to get people to say good things about people. If she keeps it up, she could knowledge-spread herself out of a job. LOL Honorable Mention: DrFernKazlow

Doing Good Deeds: AlexsLemonade

Alex’s Lemonade Stand is about addressing childhood cancer. They give buckets of information about this disease, and engage and follow back as well.

Sports: blueclaws

Minor league baseball is what makes America great! And the Lakewood Blueclaws, class-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, give regular updates of their games, host tweet-ups, and engage their growing audience.

Technology: waybis

Wayne Bishop brought us tweet coverage of a Space Shuttle launch. Complete with the technical details. How can that be topped? Honorable Mention: motordoc

Inspiration: HipCindy

Ask Cindy Osborne about her dad. Go on, ask. It made me misty.

Entrepreneurship: DebbieSchaeffer

Here we have the CEO of a venerable neighborhood appliance store, and she’s embraced social media (esp. Twitter) and an aggressive marketing plan to keep her store relevant for the next decade and who knows how long after? Honorable Mention: mmangen, GeriRosman

Education: professorkim

Kim Pearson is a long-time friend of my family. She’s a fantastic educator, with specialties in journalism and digital storytelling, and never misses a teachable moment. She doesn’t follow everyone back, but she’s worth the follow.

Music: collective_soul

But everybody says that. LOL Hey wait a minute! Did I go over ten? Ah, too bad for Collective Soul. Honorable mention to michael_falk, who loves blip.fm as much as I do. We frequently toss songs at each other.

To hang out with: NJTweeps, too many to mention. But I’m partial to

• lemasney for his knowledge of beer and open-source artistry
• Eva_Abreu for being well-connected in this area
• DJFathaRamzee for being a good friend; the best!

I wonder why Belinda couldn’t do this. It was… fun.