Twitter is all about the community around it and about people (connectors) who build other vertical communities around themselves and their activities.
Among the Twitter users I follow regularly, there are a couple that are real innovators in the activity of building a community and interact / engage with it. Those people are definitely a strong and important core which Twitter is built on.
That said here is, in no particular order, the top five innovators and community builders who give value to my Twitter stream.
1) Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver)
Jeff has been building communities for the past 15 years. With VON first (VoIP and IP communications), with 140 Character Conference now (everything around Twitter and people who make it worthwhile). What I love about Jeff is that he is a very powerful connector by keeping himself focused on his goals. Jeff’s Twitter stream is all about what I call “life coaching”, Twitter, 140 Character Conference and engaging with his followers. I have never seen Jeff retweeting something. Jeff is always original and never misses a reply or direct message.
2) Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan)
Chris and Jeff are very close. Chris helped Jeff with VON for a couple years as community manager and, after that, he started what quickly became a very popular blog. He also wrote “Trust Agents“, a book that quickly made Amazon’s Top 10 for 2009.
You know what? Try to find a retweet in Chris’ Twitter stream. Rare. Does this mean something? Do innovative community builders retweet less? Mmm, don’t think so, see below…
3) Robert Scoble (@scobleizer)
No introduction needed, right? Robert is a well known Silicon Valley geek, someone who speaks loud when it comes to expressing his opinion about a service, product, company, person and so on. And his voice counts a lot. I can say his voice can help a company/service grow or hit the dead pool. And a huge community follow him.
He’s much different from Jeff or Chris (I would say he is “less” entrepreneur and “more” opinion leader, despite he changes his mind very often…) and his tweeting habits are much different too. He shares a lot of stuff by retweeting and favoriting and his tweets cover thousands different topics.
4) Pete Cashmore (@mashable)
Pete is the man behind Mashable, the most famous tech blog out there. Why in this list? When a news hits Mashable, the number of retweets of that news is impressive. Pete and his crew have been geniuses in leveraging Twitter at its best and building a strong community around Mashable. His tweetings habits are all around Mashable and news sharing. Didn’t expect this, right? 
5) Kim Sherrell (@kim)
Kim is definitely the jolly of this list. I came across Kim through Twitter and I immediately started enjoying her activity on Twitter. Unlike the four guys above, I never met her personally, but I look forward to catching during my next visit to US. She built a very solid community on Twitter and I learnt a lot from her. Definitely worth following!
Related articles by Zemanta
- 140Conf in Los Angeles, Day One (heidi-miller.com)
- Twitter Lists Are Not About Discovery (regulargeek.com)
- A Picture Is Worth 140 Characters (sassholes.blogspot.com)
- You Do Not Have to be Social Media Famous. (myventurepad.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=158bd64e-d796-4b0f-8a5a-0bb79f12ae42)
Why I run my blog on Thesis Wordpress Theme
Thesis gives my blog a very professional look with very clean, easy-to-read layout and SEO friendly design. Take a look at my post explaining why I chose Thesis for my blog. Get your Thesis Theme today!
Why I host my blog on Media Temple
Media Temple Grid-Service is a hosting solution which guarantees speed and reliability to my blog. Unlike other shared hosting plans, Mediatemple Grid-Service eliminates the “bad neighbor effect” by distributing the load over several servers instead of confining it to one machine. This redundancy means more stability and virtually no downtime. Get Media Temple Hosting services now!
