@digiday @scottyhendo @shivsingh @StephanieSAM @ckieff @JasonDPG @annemai @KenRobbins @sofadude @LizaPost @DragonSearch @fromedome @mmathias @HartHooton @Alirana @tanyachadha @chrisfield

Every Friday many people in Social Media, especially on Twitter, but also on blogs and other sites, share lists of people that they enjoy following on social media sites. On my blog, Orient Lodge, I regularly participate in this. However, after the Digiday conferences in New York on Thursday, I thought it would be an interesting post for Digiday:Daily. I use TwitterFeed to post the title and lede of my blog post, along with a link to Twitter, and I use the Twitter App on Facebook to pull the Tweet and use it as my status on Facebook. With that, let me discuss some of the people from the Digiday events on Thursday that are well worth following.

@scottyhendo presented “The Future of Cause Marketing: Pledge to End Hunger Case Study”. He mentioned that the head of Tyson said a brand engaging in cause marketing should be like the moon, reflecting the light of the cause, in this case hunger. To illustrate his point, he provided a graph of the number of followers that he, Tyson Foods and the Pledge to End Hunger drive had during the campaign. The campaigns followers skyrocketed while his followers and the Tyson food followers remained on a standard trajectory.

I’ve often wondered how appearing at a conference like Digiday:Mobile or Digiday:Social affects the number of followers a speaker has. @shivsingh provided the keynote for Digiday:Social, “The Social MediaInfluencers: How Brands Become Connectors on the Social Web” which was very well received and I expect he may have picked up quite a few followers as a result.

@StephanieSAM led a panel on making sense of social media data, “Data Here, Data There, Data Everywhere! Making Sense of Social Data“. At one point in the discussion someone brought up a request from a brand about making a viral video. This led to a good discussion on Twitter about how a request to make a viral video is sort of like a request to make a hit TV show. Good content goes viral, but if you set out to make something go viral, it is probably less likely to have good content and go viral.

One person to join in this discussion was @ckieff. I’ve met Chris at many events and he let me know that he is now working on his own at 1 Good Reason. His card describes himself as a ‘Social Marketing Evangalist’. Normally, that would be enough for me to throw the card in the trash. Everyone and their brother on Twitter is a social marketing evangelist. However, Chris really does understand digital marketing strategy, and I encourage people to follow him on Twitter.

After the event, I had a chance to speak to many interesting people. Two that I speak with at many such events are @JasonDPG and @annemai. They are both well worth the follow. I also had a very interesting discussion with @KenRobbins. Ken is the President of Response Mine Interactive, one of the Sammy award winners.

During the conference and the awards ceremony, there were lots of interesting discussions on Twitter. Perhaps the most interesting comment came from @sofadude They observed that Weber Shandwick, one of the finalists for Best Twitter Branding, was a PR firm and not an ad shop. They went on to say that if social media is all about the conversation, then perhaps it is best to let public relations and communications firms handle your brand, as well as noting that this may be more cost efficient. Of course, they managed to communicate the idea in 140 characters.

There were several other people that contributed a lot to the discussion on Twitter about the conference and they deserve a shout out as well: @LizaPost @DragonSearch @fromedome @mmathias @HartHooton @Alirana @tanyachadha @chrisfield

So, whether you attend any of the Digiday events on Thursday, these are some of the people that I considered influencers and I hope you follow them. Of course, I hope you follow me on Twitter as well. I’m @ahynes1. Then, join the discussion and share your Follow Friday favorites and if you attended any of the Digiday events, what you thought the highpoints were.

(Cross posted at DigidayDaily.)