50 Content Marketing Influencers & Brands to Make You Smarter in 2016

Even if Content Marketing is entering the "Trough of Disillusionment" as Joe Pulizzi has said in reference to Gartner's "Hype Cycle", brands and marketers seem to be continuing to outspend themselves each year in budget and resources on content for marketing.

With all that content comes competition and staying on top of what's important in the content marketing world is more important than ever. While it's convenient to pick one voice to follow, no one resource or person is enough to keep you competitive. 

When you can find people who are inspirational, practical and tactical, their collective wisdom can help you stay ahead of the competition and most importantly next quarter's marketing goals. 

But where do you find these content marketing smarties? Of course, they're everywhere on the social web. But which influencers, brands and publishers are worth following when it comes to solid content marketing advice?

Each year Onalytica publishes a list of 100 content marketing influencers and brands that can be a great place to start, especially if you use Twitter.

Here is a list of the top 25 individual content marketing influencers:

1. @jeffbullas Jeff Bullas, Jeffbullas.com
2. @jaybaer Jay Baer, Convince & Convert
3. @JoePulizzi Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute
4. @BrennerMichael Michael Brenner, Marketing Insider Group
5. @neilpatel Neil Patel, Crazy Egg & Hello Bar
6. @MarketingProfs Ann Handley, MarketingProfs
7. @leeodden Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing
8. @markwschaefer Mark Schaefer, Schaefer Marketing Solutions
9. @FX_Digital Steve Cartwright, FX Digital
10. @randfish Rand Fishkin, Moz
11. @sujanpatel Sujan Patel, Web Profits
12. @larrykim Larry Kim, Wordstream
13. @GerryMoran Gerry Moran, Cognizant
14. @heidicohen HeidiCohen, Actionable Marketing Guide
15. @Robert_Rose Robert Rose, Content Marketing Institute
16. @dougkessler Doug Kessler, Velocity
17. @IanCleary Ian Cleary, RazorSocial
18. @FeldmanCreative Barry Feldman, FeldmanCreative
19. @NealSchaffer Neal Schaffer, Maximize Your Social
20. @JasonMillerCA Jason A Miller, Linkedin
21. @PamMktgNut Pam Moore, Marketing Nutz
22. @Sam___Hurley Sam Hurley, Optim-Eyez
23. @BrianHonigman Brian Honigman, Honigman Media
24. @MariSmith Mari Smith, marismith.com
25 @lieblink Rebecca Lieb, rebeccalieb.com  

Here is a list of 25 content marketing brands:

 1. @CMIContent Content Marketing
2. @HubSpot HubSpot
3. @Inc Inc.
4. @Moz Moz
5. @newscred NewsCred
6. @B2Community Business 2 Community
7. @hootsuite Hootsuite
8. @copyblogger Copyblogger
9. @SlideShare LinkedIn SlideShare
10. @Entrepreneur Entrepreneur
11. @toprank TopRankMarketing.com
12. @socialmedia2day Social Media Today
13. @contently Contently
14. @Kissmetrics Kissmetrics
15. @Econsultancy Econsultancy
16. @Marketingland Marketing Land
17. @marketo Marketo
18. @SMExaminer SocialMedia Examiner
19. @curata Curata
20. @sejournal SearchEngineJournal®
21. @semrush SEMrush
22. @sewatch Search Engine Watch
23. @eMarketer eMarketer
24. @adexchanger AdExchanger
25. @kapost Kapost

Very few people and their companies appeared in both lists with the exception of Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose plus CMI (as you would expect) and Rand Fishkin plus Moz, which makes sense given Moz's superior content marketing efforts and Rand's overall popularity.

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the appearance of our digital marketing agency, TopRank Marketing at #11 on the brand list. That position is also the only agency in the top 40, which is pretty remarkable when it comes to lists like this. 

A BIG THANKS goes to my team at TopRank Marketing for creating and sharing great information about content marketing!

Thank you also to Onalytica for publishing the list and I appreciate being included in the top 10 content marketing influencers myself, alongside great and respected names like Jay Baer, Michael Brenner, Joe Pulizzi, Ann Handley and Mark Schaefer.

Check out the post on Onlalytica's blog and let me know who your "must follows" are. Also, which content marketing pros would you add?

THANK YOU for reading! Be sure to find my pithy tips, news and insights on "the Twitter" at @leeodden. If you like the photo above, it came from my Instagram account. Of course, I pay the bills by working at TopRank Marketing and do a little blogging at TopRank's Online Marketing Blog.