Top Influencers & People to Watch – Volume 5

Have you noticed that it’s getting more and more difficult to know which online sources to trust? Indeed, this helps explain why roundups such as ActiveDEMAND’s Top Influencers and People to Watch are consistently some of the most-read and shared: People want – no, scratch that… they NEED – to know that the content they’re reading is reliable and trustworthy. Here, in our fifth volume of the Top Influencers and People to Watch segment, we continue with bringing you face-to-face (well, sort of) with some of the more distinguished members of this trustworthy marketing professionals crowd, taking into consideration such factors as usefulness and reliability of blog and social media posts, advanced knowledge in one or more areas of marketing, size of their audiences and awards received.

The following top influencers represent the latest in our series of amazingly successful marketing gurus…so, as always, sit back in your favorite easy chair and carve out some time to learn more about these movers and shakers.

Doug Kessler

Co-founder and creative director of Velocity, a UK-based B2B content marketing and technology marketing firm, Doug is a “displaced Yank” who started his career at Ogilvy & Mather in New York, only to eventually find his calling in Business-to-Business specialization. As a self-proclaimed content marketing junkie, Doug is also a copywriter at heart with a secret passion for analytics – but when he’s really in “creative mode,” Mr. Kessler injects a sense of professionalism and expertise into not only B2B content marketing but design and branding, digital marketing campaigns and strategy.

Amber Naslund

Boasting an almost overwhelming amount of impressive, professional experience to her credit, Amber is the SVP of marketing and “Chief Evangelist” for Sysomos, a social intelligence agency that works wonders with analytics and data science. She spent four years consulting as president and co-founder of SideraWorks, a social business consultancy, where she helped companies who had purchased social enterprise software and collaboration platforms experience better uptake, adoption and return on their efforts. Amber has also built and designed workshops, education materials and a myriad of rollout and adoption plans, to say nothing of the nearly infinite work she has done in the professional fundraising, corporate communications, marketing, professional services and social media strategy sectors. She’s also the author of a best-selling business book entitled The NOW Revolution about the impact that social media has on the way businesses work today, and speaks professionally about social technology, business and strategy at dozens of industry conferences and private events every year.

Brent Csutoras

Brent is a social media strategist and entrepreneur, specializing in social media marketing, content marketing and viral content creation. He finds his way onto our list of Top Influencers and People to Watch because of his plethora of accomplishments – from being mentioned in Diversity Journal, EcommerceTimes, Forbes, Wired, Health and Entrepreneur.com to being recognized as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2008 and 2009. He speaks regularly at some of the largest and most renowned conferences including SMX, Pubcon, SES and InfoPresse, and has been awarded a SEMMY for his article on “How to Create Compelling Social Media Profiles” while continuing to write for a variety of sites such as Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Kairay Media and, of course, on BrentCsutoras.com.

Chad Pollitt

A decorated veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and former Army Commander, Chad Pollitt is VP of Audience and co-founder of Relevance.com, an online publication solely dedicated to assisting marketing and communications executives solve their online content visibility challenges. As a member of Forbes’ Top 100 list, Chad also authored 51 Things Your Mother Taught You About Inbound Marketing, and has contributed to industry media outlets including The Guardian, Huffington Post, Social Media Today, Business2Community and LinkedIn. Chad is particularly proud of his latest book, The Content Promotion Manifesto, in which he takes a hard and realistic look at today’s content marketing environment and explains why content production without planned promotion can be a recipe for lackluster results.

We sincerely hope you enjoyed the fifth installment of our Top Influencers and People to Watch blogs…stay tuned for more of the same right here on ActiveDEMAND.com!