Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing some social media training with the web editor here, Charles Cooper. He’s been getting to know Twitter, learning how to gauge statistics and generally interacting more like a good little minion (smile Charles).

He asked me who he should follow on Twitter that would help us in our company goals. We are trying to make the most out of small business as a whole and offer discounts, advice and other tools. I have a fair share of people that I look to on Twitter to help with that. I told him I could give him a list of some of the people that I follow and then he would be able to build from there. I don’t think he’s the only one who could benefit from such a list.

There are lots of awesome people in small business and frankly, I’d like to share them with you as well. This is the ultimate #followfriday. We should all be connected so that we can make the most out of what we have. After all, it’s what community is all about!

My Top 20 Small Business Experts on Twitter

In no particular order (except for the first two).

1. Kim Fenolio http://www.twitter.com/kFenolio
   I write and share original small business tips every day, Monday through Friday. Topics relate to marketing, finances, employment, public relations, technology, twitter, sales, customer service and more.

2. Charles Cooper http://www.twitter.com/CMaxCooper
   Charles works with me and is our main web editor and content creator! He shares a lot of great small business advice, how-to information and also covers small business in politics.

3. Becky McCray http://www.twitter.com/BeckyMcCray
   Every time I turn around it seems Beck is full of encouragement for others, offering up her Brag Basket on her blog and advocating for small business. She’s the first person I turn to for small business advice. Just ask her!

4. Liz Strauss http://www.twitter.com/lizstrauss
   Liz is absolutely brilliant in how she helps small business handle social media, public relations and increase their ROI. Just listen to her for a while.

5. Anita Campbell http://www.twitter.com/smallbiztrends
   Anita is full of success stories in small business and social media. She also has a large reach with her small business podcast, Small Business Trends. She even interviewed our president for the show.

6. Kelly Spors http://www.twitter.com/WSJSmallBiz
   Kelly is a Wall Street Journal reporter who starts some excellent conversation on small business.

7. Dawud Miracle http://www.twitter.com/DawudMiracle
   Dawud is great for strategy on relationship building for the purpose of an income with growing your small business.

8. SmallBizBee http://www.twitter.com/SmallBizBee
   Shares lots of great information on small business and sparks a lot of good conversation as well.

9. TweetSmallBiz http://twitter.com/tweetsmallbiz
   Retweets all of the good small business talk on Twitter.

10. Brad Farris http://www.twitter.com/blfarris
    Brad demonstrates a good handling of small business education and local community building.

11. John Sternal http://www.twitter.com/SternalPR
    John is a guy who is an innovator in small business with public relations. That’s his field and expertise and it certainly shows!

12. Kyle Durand http://twitter.com/kpdurand
    Kyle really just wants to help people and see small business succeed. You can really see that in his tweets!

13. Rex Hammock http://www.twitter.com/smallbusiness
    Rex Hammock has TwitterFeed set up to share small business news story links. Not really a social account, but the information is good.

14. Jim Connolly http://twitter.com/jimconnolly
    Jim is small business marketing who helps people all over the world learn how to boost their sales and make a profit.

15. Carl Natale http://twitter.com/mainebusiness
    Carl posts some great links and advice for small business. His profile says for the locale of Maine only, however the information is pretty much applicable to all states.

16. Small Business Buzz http://twitter.com/sbbuzz
    Encourages constant dialogue between small businesses and is a catalyst for small business chats weekly on Twitter.

17. ATT OnwardSmallBiz http://twitter.com/OnwardSmallBiz
    ATT is supporting small business is some great and connecting ways; really making it personal. I like that.

18. Stephanie Cathcart http://twitter.com/scathcart
    Stephanie specializes in healthcare, tax and labor issues on behalf of small business. She works for NFIB and does a killer job.

19. Rob McNealy http://www.twitter.com/RobMcNealy
    Rob always seems to have something new to share. He also has a podcast called Startup Story Radio.

20. John Jantsch http://www.twitter.com/ducttape
    John shares lots of great information on small business through Twitter, his blog and also on his podcasts. He interviewed our president, Jim Tracy, this past November.

Side Note

I have all of these people loaded on TweetDeck in their own custom group. It’s my small business group. If you don’t already use TweetDeck for Twitter, I’d recommend it.

Who else should be on this list? Why?