20 Most Influential People in Social Media

Thanks to Income Diary, you know who are the top bloggers, female entrepreneurs, and Internet millionaires under 30. Now it’s time to take a look into the world of social media – the who’s who of people you have probably seen around the social media-sphere a time or two while demonstrating their expertise in a variety of fields and others who you might just be hearing about for the first time.

By the way, I’m willing to bet that you probably know enough about social media right now to start your own side business.

Don’t believe me?

Check out Kate’s new video and see if you’re not convinced that a new (lucrative) side project is right for you.

Without further ado, here are the most influential people in social media.

Jay Baer

8,200+ followers 44,400+ followers 1,360+ fans

Jay Baer is a tequila-loving, hype free social media strategist and speaker. He co-authored The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social with Amber Naslund (she’s coming up on the list too). His blog, Convince & Convert, covers the A to almost Z of everything in online marketing from A/B testing to website strategy.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: The 4 Types of Content Metrics That Matter Why You Need to Turn Your Content Marketing Upside Down Why Critics of Klout Are Missing the Big Picture

Lisa Barone

3,600+ followers 20,000+ followers 293 fans

Lisa is co-founder of Outspoken Media along with Rhea Drysdale & Rae Hoffman-Dolan. Her catchphrase is that while some people save lives, she saves brands. She is known for her honest industry observations, inability to not say what she’s thinking, and excessive Twittering. Her blog, Outspoken Media, covers affiliate marketing, blogging, Internet marketing, reputation management, SEO, and more.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Mastering the Small Business Link Building Basics Beyond Rankings: Actionable SEO Reports Your Boss Will Love Success Means Getting Dirty With Your Audience

Danny Brown

10,000 followers 30,700+ followers 5,000+ fans

Danny Brown is co-founder and CEO of Bonsai Interactive Marketing which offers integrated social media and mobile marketing solutions and applications to businesses. His blog is featured in the AdAge Power 150 and is one of Canada’s top marketing blogs as well. He’s well-known for his expertise in public relations, blogging, marketing, social media, and oddly enough, sheep.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: How to Use Social Media for Your HR Needs The Only Marketing Tip You’ll Ever Need You Make the Choices

Pete Cashmore

184,111 followers 2,493,926 followers

Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of Mashable, one of the largest and most well known sites for digital, social media, and technology news. He has been recogized as one of AdAge’s 2011 influencers, Time’s 100 people in 2010, and Forbes as a web celebrity. He can find his latest on both Mashable and CNN.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Free Music on Facebook: How Can It Fail? 10 Fascinating Facebook Facts – And What They Say About Us Google+: 10 Things It Does Better

Matt Cutts

102,400+ followers 134,400+ followers

Matt Cutts is the head of the webspam team at Google, and generally recognized as the public face of Google. He’s the person SEOs love, love to hate, and love to mercilessly pick on at the same time. He blogs about Google (of course), gadgets, and SEO at his blog.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: A rel=canonical Corner Case Google 2000 vs. Google 2011 My Thoughts on This Week’s Blekko Debate

Guy Kawasaki

60,300+ followers 402,000+ followers 56,700+ fans

Guy Kawasaki is the author of Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, a former chief evangelist for Apple, and co-founder of Alltop.com, the site that brings the top blogs on virtually every topic imaginable together. If you happen to follow him on Google+, you’ll find he updates 10-20 posts per day, numbering them for each day.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Best Site for New Google+ Members State of Social Media in 2011 The Art of the Repeat Tweet

Brian Moran

400+ followers 1,700+ followers 83,000+ fans

Brian Moran is perhaps one of the top people to go to when it comes to Facebook marketing. He built his website’s fan page to over 80,000 fans in under 10 months and now helps small businesses get off the ground with their Facebook strategy. His blog, Get 10,000 Fanscovers fan page marketing, Facebook advertising, and much more.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Facebook SSL: What You Need To Know 7 Types of Facebook Sponsored Ads 7 Steps to a Profitable Facebook Fan Page

Amber Naslund

unlisted followers 43,700+ followers 240+ fans

Amber is the VP of social strategy for Radian6, business and communications strategist, and co-author of the The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social with Jay Baer as mentioned above. Her blog, Brass Stack Thinking, covers blogging, branding, marketing, social media, and more.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: When Even Social Customer Service Isn’t Enough Consider This: 24/7 Access, Work, and Social Media Why You Shouldn’t Rely on a Social Media Ringer

Jessica Northey

unlisted followers 171,000+ followers 3,300+ fans

Jessica Northey is a social media, broadcasting, country and music blogger / journalist who heads up Finger Candy Media. Her business helps celebrities, musicians, brands, and businesses use social media to accomplish their productivity goals.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: 5 Questions To Ask Yourself When Using Social Media Social Media and the Seven Diminutives More Google Plus or Minus from My G+ Circles

Jolie O’Dell

28,800+ followers 419 fans

Jolie O’Dell is a journalist and start-up veteran, computer science student, and tech journalist for Mashable. Her personal blogcovers just about everything a personal blog could cover.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Google+ Users Are Nearly All Male Why Do People Follow Brands? How Small Businesses Are Using Mobile

Chris Pirillo

53,800+ followers 99,000+ followers 30,500+ fans

Chris Pirillo is technology strategist whom tech enthusiasts trust to answer questions and lead discussions on the latest and greatest tech news. He launched the Lockergnome publishing network and began a web community for geeks. His blog all things tech and geeky!Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Star Wars Advent Calendar is Jediriffic Year-Round How to Rough It with Technology Building Egyptian Pyramids is Easy… with LEGO

Amy Porterfield

3,500+ followers 20,500+ followers 5,300+ fans

Amy is an online marketing and social media consultant who specializes in Facebook marketing. She is the co-author of the brand new book Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies released in August of this year, and is a regular author on her own blog and Social Media Examiner as well as the creator of the Facebook Marketing All-In-One For Dummies program.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: 5 Reasons Google+ Will Change Your Content Marketing Strategy for the Better

Trey Ratcliff

106,000+ followers 25,400+ followers 24,400+ fans

Trey Ratcliff is one of the most popular photographers on social media, and is mostly known for his HDR and travel photography on Stuck in Customs. He makes some pretty awesome videos using his photography on YouTubeas well.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Mystery Location Cyborg Fabrication Plant Google Photos Hangout at Google+ Highlights

Corvida Raven

1,400+ followers 7,700+ followers

Corvida Raven’s is a speaker, consultant, and technology blogger whose goal is to educate you on the latest technology in plain English. Her blog, She Geeks, covers education, mobile, social media, web, and much more. She’s been recognized by Fast Company as an influential woman in technlogy, is known as a social influence as well.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Facebook Messenger: A Dedicated App for Facebook Messaging Tweetbot for iPhone: A Refreshing New Twitter App Twitter Web Intents and How Bloggers Can Use Them

Robert Scoble

143,700+ followers 206,600+ followers 27,000+ subscribers

Robert Scoble is a blogger, technical evangelist, and author best known for his blog Scobleizer. He is a proud employee of Rackspace, and proves just how much he loves talking to other geeks by publishing his own cell number on this blog and social profiles.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Socialize Helps Make Your New App More Social Shaker Brings New Interactivity to Facebook Facebook’s New Privacy and Sharing Defenses

Mari Smith

20,000+ followers 118,000+ followers 49,000+ fans

Mari is a well-known social media speaker & trainer, chic geek & Facebook passionista, bubbly Scottish-Canadian, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and author of The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, Profitable Network Using the Social Web, and contributor to Social Media Examiner. Her blog on relationship marketing covers buzz marketing, email marketing, Facebook, personal branding, professional networking, social media, and more.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: What’s So Exciting About Google+ – An Overview Ten Qualities of Social Media Superstars – Featuring 32 Leaders The #1 Mistake On Your Personal Facebook Profile

Michael Stelzner

6,000+ followers 35,700+ followers 59,200+ fans

Michael Stelzner is the CEO and founder of Social Media Examiner, one of the fastest growing blogs that is the authority for all things social media. He also is the author of Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: How to Produce Timeless Content That Helps You Today, Tomorrow and Forever 7 Ways to Get Noticed on Facebook With Facebook News Feed Optimization How to Use Facebook Places and Facebook Deals for Local Business

Wayne Sutton

7,600+ followers 34,800+ followers 790+ fans

Wayne Sutton is an entrepreneur, advisor, and technlogy journalist. He helps individuals, startups, and businesses understand how to communicate on the social web. His blog, Social Wayne, has been ranked in the top 50 best tech and social media blogs on the Internet.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: What You Need to Know About QR Codes 7 QR Code Marketing Examples by Major Brands, Music Artists, and Publications How to Manage Social Media Success Like an American Idol Contestant

Gina Trapani

86,600+ followers 175,700+ followers 915 fans

Gina Trapini is an award-winning blogger, programmer, and co-author of Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better. She is the founder of Lifehacker and created the ThinkUp app. Her blog, Smarterware, covers all things to do with great software.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: End Malaria: New Book Saves Lives Open Source 101: My Refresh SD Talk Google+ and Building Better Online Privacy Models

Tamar Weinberg

16,100+ followers 28,100+ followers 1,160 fans

Tamar Weinberg is a social media consultant & trainer, blogger, and author of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. She is passionate for anything to do with the internet, social media, blogging, and gadgets. Her blog, Techipedia, covers all things social media and technology.Interesting Tips, Advice, and Shares: Email Overload: The Secret to Getting Inbox Zero Every Time 17 Digital Marketing Experts Share Their Top Tips, Tricks, and Tools The Success of Customer Service is Dependent Upon True Social Engagement

Your Favorites

This is just a sampling of the awesome people in social media. There are many, many others in almost every field, niche, or industry imaginable. So my questions for you are:

• Who are your favorites?
• Who would would you like to add to this list and why?

[Image Credit: Sean MacEntee]