5 Influencers We Love to Follow Online and Why

One of the best ways to succeed online, and just about any other endeavour in life, is to study your craft with an aim to improve each and every day. That’s a time-tested philosophy, and one that we wholeheartedly embrace here at Kayak.

And so, today we want to share with you a few of our favorite online authors, thinkers, and leaders who have helped to shape the way we think about things like content, search, and social media. While we can’t say there is anyone on the planet we agree with all the time, these are individuals from whom you could learn a lot by reading and following, just like we do:

Gini Dietrich

As the owner of Spin Sucks, as well as her own PR firm, Gini is a recognized expert of all things communication. More importantly, though, she’s not afraid to tell it like it is, or to take an opinion that runs contrary to what we’ve all decided should be accepted wisdom. Other than those opinions, the best thing about her blog and other content is that she has a keen eye spotting trends, and a real knack for explaining key online marketing issues in a way that makes them easy to grasp and use.

Danny Brown

Recognized by HubSpot as the top marketing blogger in the world, already makes him worth following. As it happens, he is also a leading expert on influence marketing, which is becoming more and more powerful in our social media age. That means Danny should be required reading for anyone who’s interested in using the Internet to grow a brand and reputation. Plus, his thoughts and insights on the future of technology, and how it influences the world at large, can help you better understand both the present and the future.  [ Get his book. ]

Mark Schafer

As you’d expect from someone who has written books called Tao of Twitter and Born to Blog, Mark is a leading voice on social media marketing. The Fortune 500 experience he brings to his work separates him from a lot of other online marketing personalities, as does his focus on inventions and innovations. But, what makes Mark’s work truly valuable is his way of bringing social media thinking back to the realities of the business world. In other words, he helps us to remember that profiles and tweets aren’t just fun, they are something you can use to make your company more profitable. [ Get his book. ]

Joe Pulizzi

We have to love anyone thinks of themselves as a “content marketing evangelist,” and Joe is no exception. While he may write about topics such as branding and social media on the surface, his real area of expertise is learning and describing what makes online content special (or conversely, ordinary). If you want to figure out how to create content that’s fun, compelling, and down-to-earth all at once, you could do worse than following his tips. [ Get his book. ]

Ann Handley

Like Joe, Ann is an accepted content guru. The key differentiator in her work is that it tends to be tilted towards engagement, and specifically how winning and keeping attention can drive bigger business results. Ann’s writing is as clever as it is insightful. We highly recommend her for anyone who wants their online marketing advice to be occasionally funny and always grounded. [ Get her book. ]

Who do they follow and why?

As we’ve already mentioned, we think you could do well to add these authors and leaders to your own list of people to follow and learn from. But, having learned from them, in many cases for years on end, we have to wonder: who do they read, and why?

With that in mind, we’d like to extend an open invitation to everyone on this list to drop us a note and let us know whom they consider to be important minds in the industry and influencers of their own. Disqus commenting makes it easy – just jot out your notes below.

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