by John Hall, Inc.

Whether you personally love or hate listicles that mention industry influencers and people to watch, you can’t deny the value of knowing who your audience pays attention to. Anyone your audience follows closely and perceives as influential is someone who should be on your radar. Knowing who these people are is a simple first step to encouraging those influencers to advocate for your brand (and even landing yourself on a list of marketing influencers).

This week, an Apollo Research report on followers of digital marketers in the U.S. came across my desk. It’s a fairly detailed report with good data about various influencers and the number of followers each has in the digital marketing space.

The report found that nearly 7,500 digital marketers in the U.S. follow almost 1.2 million unique Twitter accounts. The top 300 accounts in the report are followed by more than 75 percent of the sample audience, and this graph visualizes the top 20 people who are followed by digital marketers in the U.S.

A lot of factors go into obtaining and building influence, and this data specifically focuses on how many people are following each influencer, not necessarily how engaged those followers are. Still, it’s a strong point of data about who your audience is paying attention to — especially when you consider the fact that these U.S.-based marketing decision makers will manage more than $100 billion in digital marketing spend by 2019.

Each digital marketer on this list has developed a solid personal brand and built relationships with his or her audience, and that’s not exactly easy to do. I’ve spent the past several months growing my Twitter account, @johnhall, from the ballpark of about 5,000 followers to close to 50,000 through a stronger content strategy, consistent tweeting, tapping into my networks, and following and engaging with more influential people — but building an impressive following doesn’t happen overnight.

Whether you love or love to hate these kinds of lists, they are valuable. True influence is hard to nail down, so it’s good to look at the big picture and keep these people on your radar: […]

Brian Solis, Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group; Author; and Keynote Speaker

Brian Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders, speakers, and published authors in new technology, digital marketing, and culture shifts. He is the author of “X: The Experience When Business Meets Design,” along with three other bestselling books.

Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianSolis […]