Tara Hunt
She not only talks the talk of building community online, she also walks the walk. She is a LinkedIN Influencer, followed by over 110,000 people. Her Slideshare presentations have been viewed over 1.7 million times. She is in the top 5% of Twitter users worldwide with over 51,000 followers.
I first discovered Tara Hunt through her YouTube channel, Truly Social. I found her thinking on social media marketing and content marketing to be spot on. I connected with her on LinkedIn and Twitter, but later I came to understand the span (she was participating in online communities when modems were still dial up (1993)) and scope (where she worked on projects with Google, Facebook, Tripit, Slideshare, and more) of her online presence.
She authored the book, The Whuffie Factor in 2009, where she explores the creation of social capital online.
She recently started up her consulting business Truly Social which has grown exponentially over the last couple of years.
Part of my reason for recommending her is that we are a bunch of educators who frequently refer to other educators in a self-legitimizing circle. I find occasional breaths of fresh air well off the ranch.