Whether you call them content marketers, digital marketing experts, or SEO gurus, one thing remains the same: they are darn good at marketing and enjoy spots at the top of their industry.
There are undoubtedly others that should be on this list, but we tried to keep it concise for those newer to digital marketing looking to learn more from the influencers who constantly deliver extremely valuable and helpful content.
In no specific order, here are our top five digital marketers to follow for beginners:
Joe Pulizzi
This list wouldn't be complete without the founder of Content Marketing Institute, which Joe Pulizzi created in 2007. Also an award-winning author and speaker, Joe is following up his bestselling 2013 book, Epic Content Marketing, with Content Inc, which you can see more about here. The video trailer for the eBook gives a good explanation of how you need to develop a content-first strategy to help grow your audience (and your business).
CMI also holds the world's largest content marketing conference every year, Content Marketing World, which brought 3,500 marketers to Ohio in 2015. Joe is very active online and social media, constantly sharing videos, eBooks, reports, slideshows and more that will help marketers learn how to do content marketing better.
Joe Pulizzi's most popular tweet:
It's official! Actor @JohnCleese is headed to #CLE to keynote #CMWorld 2015! http://t.co/L4ASASah7G pic.twitter.com/WMzzMSo3EI
— Content Marketing (@CMIContent) February 9, 2015
Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin founded Moz (formerly SEOMoz), an industry-leading adviser that creates online tools and software that helps digital marketers and SEO agencies. SEOMoz began back in 2004 to engage the online marketing community. He is a co-author to The Art of SEO and Inbounding Marketing and SEO, and has spoken at many conferences and events.
In 2013, he decided to step down as CEO of Moz to focus on doing more research that would help the digital marketing industry. He still remains active, doing the extremely popular Whiteboard Friday videos, where he dives deep into a topic and explains it all in a whiteboard video. His most-viewed whiteboard video on YouTube was from back in 2013 on the topic of SEO's dilemma between content marketing and link building.
Moz hosts one of the biggest digital marketing conferences in the industry called MozCon in Seattle, WA, where thousands of digital marketers, brand evangelists, and SEO experts get together for a few days every summer. Rand Fishkin is also the co-founder of inbound.org, which is a very popular social network among inbound marketers that want to share resourceful content with each other.
Rand Fishkin's most popular tweet:
I think one of the most admirable qualities in a person is the ability to reverse long-held beliefs in the face of contradicting evidence.
— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) August 1, 2015
Neil Patel
Neil Patel is also in Seattle, Washington as an entrepreneur, angel investor, and enterprise consultant, as well as being co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and Kissmetrics.
Crazy Egg creates heat maps so website owners can literally see where their visitors are clicking. Hello Bar is a tool for websites to display a customized bar to get more subscribers, social shares, and customers. Kissmetrics is a website analytics platform to help optimize your website, increase conversions, drive engagement, and get more results online.
He also blogs regularly at his marketing and business blog, Quick Sprout. Quick Sprout University is an educational tool available to help marketers increase their knowledge in everything from SEO to social media to email marketing and conversion optimization.
Neil has written complete and ultimate guides to almost every topic in digital marketing, including the very popular Advanced Guide to SEO eBook.
Neil Patel's most popular tweet:
How to Make Custom Images for Your Blog Posts Without Hiring a Designer http://t.co/OrS4KyScCU pic.twitter.com/BX2QdoO4UX — Neil Patel (@neilpatel) June 28, 2015
Jeff Bullas
Jeff Bullas is one of the top content marketers online and has won many awards for it along the way. Besides being an avid blogger, he is a speaker, business consultant, and author of Blogging the Smart Way. He has been ranked among the best for content and digital marketing on Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc, Huffington Post, and many more.
The blog contains tons of insightful and how-to information on social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, email marketing—basically any form of digital marketing. Here is an interview to find out more about Jeff Bullas:
Jeff Bullas's most popular tweet:
Using SEO To Maximize Your Content Marketing Strategy http://t.co/1pyR2zMTk1 #SEO #contentmarketing pic.twitter.com/aEWsZIt3Mm
— Jeff Bullas (@jeffbullas) October 5, 2015
Wil Reynolds
Wil Reynolds is the founder of Seer Interactive, which started in Philadelphia in 2002 and now also has an office in San Diego, CA. Seer Interactive has made a helpful but easy-to-use toolbox for digital marketers that ties many different online tools together through APIs. Besides consulting enterprise companies with all of their digital marketing needs and managing his team of over 100 employees, he is one of the most prolific speakers in the digital marketing industry.
Wil makes online marketers think about the tried and true ways of doing digital marketing, which doesn't involve manipulating search engines with black hat tricks. Instead, he believes in creating truly amazing content to get to your target audience. He has a popular motto, "doing real company stuff," which you can see him talk about in this 2012 MozCon video:
Wil Reynolds's most popular tweet:
Marketing amplifies, if your brand is amazing or crap, marketing will amplify that, think about that before you "drive traffic" #mozcon — Wil Reynolds (@wilreynolds) July 13, 2015
So start following these digital marketing influencers on Twitter, go through their slideshows, read their books, and try to engage or share their content whenever you can. These are the digital marketers that we follow to keep up with marketing trends. If we have any that we missed in our list, please let us know in the comments section below!
