AGBeat’s top 50 industry influencers

Liz Strauss

[dropcap style=”style1″]I[/dropcap]nfluential for her social media expertise, Liz Strauss is an international business strategist and a professional speaker on leadership, attracting customers and community building.

She is the CEO and Co-Founder of interactive business strategy summit, SOBCon, as well as Managing Partner at Inside-Out Thinking, a business creation partnership, and author of the popular Successful-Blog.com.

During her tenure as an international publisher and instructional designer, Liz was consistently hired to rebuild companies and reignite teams. Liz trained hundreds of employees to understand the needs of their market and the ways leaders move action through a company. She has worked with C-Suite executives and interdepartmental teams on four continents.

One of Strauss’ most influential characteristics isn’t one she chose, rather one she is, and that is kind to the core. In the race to be bigger, better, stronger, and louder, Strauss has stayed the course and stuck to her principles, inspiring others to be authentic and kind, just as she is.

Lori Ruff

[dropcap style=”style1″]T[/dropcap]he LinkedIn Diva, trainer Lori Ruff, is not only the CEO of Integrated Alliances Social Media, specializes in B2B sales and marketing, she is one of the top connected women on LinkedIn. Ruff credits passion, persistence, and courage for her success.

She and her partner Mike O’Neil co-host “RockTheWorld with LinkedIn” radio and her next book, “Keep It Real: Living Life Fearlessly” comes out Spring, 2014. She offers a plethora of free information at RockLinkedIn.com, which offers more than your typical individual training package. Ruff is always light hearted and willing to help, and is influential for her generosity of her time and talent.

Lou Adler

[dropcap style=”style1″]L[/dropcap]ou Adler is an influential force on LinkedIn, posting of the most interacted with posts on the site for all of 2013.

Adler is the CEO of The Adler Group which was established 36 years ago, and he’s more than a LinkedIn force, he is an expert in hiring, publishing several books, such as Hire With Your Head.

What we respect about Adler is that he has long helped businesses to embed performance-based hiring training with the executive search process, and has continued to innovate in his field.

Lucky Shirt

[dropcap style=”style1″]W[/dropcap]hen long-form blogging platform, Medium.com launched, we suspected that it would be the usual suspects filling the pages, but from the first days, Lucky Shirt captured our attention.

If there is such a thing as a God on Medium, it’s Lucky Shirt. Each month, when Medium rounds up the most read posts, his pieces are almost always included, and with stories like “I Never Win Because I’m a Girl,” and “Dear Guy Who Just Made My Burrito,” it’s no wonder why the world can’t stop reading his hilarious columns.

He is directly influential on Medium for responding to the anti-Medium rhetoric boiling over in the earliest days of the platform, with his column, “Why I Write for Medium.”

Mari Smith

[dropcap style=”style1″]O[/dropcap]ne of the best known Facebook experts, Mari Smith is one of the most elite social media experts in the land. She has penned The New Relationship Marketing and coauthored Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day.

Smith is brilliant with relationship marketing and is an industry veteran, which is why she is highly sought after as a keynote speaker and trainer.

Sure, she has a huge following, but she makes our list for always being poised and polished as she helps shape business’ social media efforts.