When it comes to understanding twitter and truly utilizing  Twitter as an arm of your business I have found myself gravitating to these key thought leaders on Twitter.

Chris Brogan

President of New Marketing Labs. Over the last several years his business has been helping improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social platforms such as twitter. Everyday you will see Chris engaged on Twitter along with his blog www.chrisbrogan.com

Chris recently wrote about some thoughts for the new year and one of his readers challenged him on twitter. So what did Chris do? He engaged them, take a look.

Also here are some other nice facts on Chris….take a look at how well he is engaged by his number of tweets and the number people following him to hear his thoughts.

Joel Comm

Joel Comm is an entrepreneur, NY Times bestselling author, and new media innovator. An expert on harnessing the power of social media and mobile applications to expand your brand’s reach and engage in active relationship marketing, Joel is a sought-after public speaker who leaves his audience inspired, entertained, and armed with strategic tools to create a new media campaign that will explode their business.

Joel’s stats

Gary Vanderchuck

Gary Vaynerchuk has captured attention with his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business. After primarily utilizing traditional advertising techniques to build his family’s local wine business into a national industry leader, Gary rapidly leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine. As his viewership swelled to over 80,000 a day, doors opened to a book deal, several national TV appearances, and a flurry of speaking engagements around the world. Gary’s dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him the “Social Media Sommelier.” I encourage you to follow Gary on his journey and learn from his insights.

Gary’s stats

Pete Cashmore

Pete Cashmore is the 24 year-old CEO and founder of Mashable.com, a Technorati Top 10 blog worldwide. He founded Mashable in a small Scottish town in 2005 at age 19. In 2009, Cashmore was chosen as one of Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30, Forbes’ Top 25 Web Celebs and the Huffington Posts’ Top 10 Game Changers 2009. He writes a weekly column on technology and media at CNN. He is one of the top 40 most-followed Twitter users, with more than 1.7 million followers. Mashable itself has been chosen as a must-read by Fast Company and PC Magazine, and BusinessWeek has featured the site as one of the world’s most profitable blogs. The site serves over 10 million monthly unique readers and employs 15 full time staff. It has more than 50 regular guest contributors and reports millions of dollars in revenue through its advertising and events businesses.

Pete’s stats

Thats its for the key business thought leaders that I follow on twitter.  Of course I have more, but this short list will really open your eyes.

One last thing, I would like to encourage you to join the Twitter Strategies Group on LinkedIn.  As a business professional looking to use twitter as an addition to your business strategy it only makes sense to join with others who have also done the same with LinkedIn.  Join the Twitter Discussion here: Twitter Strategies