Last week we featured the first 10 out of 20 social media thought leaders that are movers and shakers within the industry. Today, we’re continuing with the second half of that list. Each individual featured has a hyperlink their blog site for easy following.

Pete Cashmore. The founder of Mashable at age 19, and also dubbed the Brad Pitt of social media, this Scottish entrepreneur was chosen as one of Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30, Forbes’ Top 25 Web Celebs and the Huffington Posts’ Top 10 Game Changers 2009. He has a weekly column on CNN and his blog has been selected as a must-ready by Fast Company and PC Magazine. BusinessWeek has featured his site as one of the world’s most profitable blogs.

Liz Strauss. A highly influential blogger, Liz created SOBCon, a conference that combines the best minds and talent from the Internet together to present models, discuss insights and determine best practices – in essence, where virtual meets concrete.

Biz Stone. This co-founder of Twitter (and creative director too) has also helped launch Xanga, Blogger, Odeo and Obvious. He’s published two books about blogging:  Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content and Who Let the Blogs Out? These days it’s easier to follow Biz on Twitter. He currently has more than 1.6 million tweeps.

Brian Solis. As Principal of the award-winning new media marketing and branding agency, Future Works in Silicon Valley, Brian has paved the way for social media and PR 2.0. He is among the top 1.5% of all blogs tracked by Technorati and is ranked by AdAge Power 150 index of worldwide bloggers. His book, Engage, includes a forward from Ashton Kutcher.

Clay Shirky. Clay is an associate professor at New York University’s (NYU) graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). Not only is he one of the most requested speakers on social media in the world, but he’s a writer and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His columns and writings have appeared in: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired and the Harvard Business Review.

Brian Halligan. Author of the best selling book, Inbound Marketing, Brian co-founded the online marketing and analytics company, Hubspot. Brian is a Sloan Fellow from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a thought leader on the social media scene.

Dave Morin. In 2009, Fast Company named Dave one of the ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’. Until recently, Dave was a senior platform manager at Facebook. He is partnering with  Napster creator, Shawn Fanning, to create a new startup.

Paul Chaney. Author of The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media, Paul understands at a granular level how social media tools can be used for marketing purposes.  Paul serves as president of the International Blogging and New Media Association, an organization dedicated to advancing the growth of blogging, podcasting and social media as an industry.

Mitch Joel. Author of the book, Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch has been called by Marketing Magazine the ‘Rock Star of Digital Marketing’. He is also known as one of North America’s leading digital visionaries.

Lee Odden. In Michael Miller’s book, Online Marketing Heroes, Lee was chosen as one of 25 online marketing experts to be featured. His experience and background in social media has been cited by The Economist, U.S. News & World Reprot and Fortune Magazine. Lee is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing.

One Response to “Top Social Media Rockstars PART 2”

1. Tweets that mention Top Social Media Rockstars | leilimckinley.com -- Topsy.com says:

   April 7, 2010 at 3:42 am

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Doug Brown. Doug Brown said: Soc Media Link: Top Social Media Rockstars | leilimckinley.com: Author of the best selling book, Inbound Marketing… http://bit.ly/c1gEC7 [...]
2. Roxanne Darling says:

   June 12, 2010 at 10:28 pm

   I agree with many of your nominations Leili tho I am always surprised that people of this stature haven’t stopped by to say “thank you.” That is one of my benchmarks for best practices – when someone blogs about you and especially adds a link, acknowledge them!

   With the super huge rock stars I can understand the math, but really I would say on this page, only Biz and Pete live in that level of the stratosphere. I know several of these folks personally and they are warm and wonderful in person; translating that to the web is the challenge/opportunity.