10 Locals You Should be Following on Twitter
If you’re already a regular twitter user, then chances are you’re following at least a few national celebrities. Maybe Tina Fey or Penn Jillette or even MC Hammer. But are you following any local celebrities? Do you get updates from the movers and shakers of Columbus who have adopted twitter as their latest communications tool? To help you get connected, we’ve put together a list of 10 locals that you should be following if you aren’t already.
Artie Isaac - Artie is the co-founder of Young Issac, a local creative advertising agency, and co-founder of SpeakerSite, an online resource for public speakers and event planners. Artie is also an adjunct instructor at OSU and CCAD and on the advisory board for Available Light [Theater].
Recent Tweet: Usually when I leave buildings, I take a deep breath and think “Wow. What a weird encounter.” In this weather, I can’t even take that breath 10:27 PM Jan 16th
Elizabeth Lessner - Liz is the go-to gal for all things related to young, energetic entrepreneurialism in Columbus. She’s the owner/co-owner of Betty’s, Surly Girl, Tip Top and Dirty Franks. She’s also the President of CORA and a board member of the Short North Business Association, just to name a few of her many civic leadership duties.
Recent Tweet: Dirty Frank’s Hot Dogs is now hiring! 10:34 AM Jan 25th
Pete McGinty - Pete is the Vice President of Marketing at Experience Columbus; the city’s Convention & Visitor’s Bureau. While traditionally more of an organization meant to draw new visitors to our city, Experience Columbus has launched new efforts at keeping locals feeling connected to Columbus.
Recent Tweet: Just had a great lunch with Mike Brown at Tip Top. The spinach salad with a scoop of tuna salad - the best! 1:47 PM Dec 9th
Ken Blackwell - Technically, Ken’s location on his Twitter page lists his hometown of Cincinnati, but a lot of his political career comes from time spent in Columbus as the previous Ohio Secretary of State. Ken also ran for Governor of Ohio in 2006, and is currently running for Chair of the Republican National Committee.
Recent Tweet: Apparently, I am such a new media ninja that Facebook will not allow me to add more friends beyond 5000. 8:47 PM Jan 21st
Andrea Cambern - Andrea anchors the evening and nightly local news on WBNS 10TV and has been one of Central Ohio’s most recognizable newscasters for nearly 20 years. Andrea serves on multiple boards of local organizations with an emphasis on health, wellness, and medical research, and lives in German Village.
Recent Tweet: Did anyone hear Kurt’s stomache growl???? The audio guys certainly did! 6:21PM Jan 22nd
Mary Jo Kilroy - Mary Jo was just elected to the US House of Reps after a very tight race against Steve Stivers. Mary Jo represents Ohio’s 15th District, which includes most of the western half of Columbus and Franklin County. Mary Jo was previously a Franklin County Commissioner and a Board Member of Columbus City Schools.
Recent Tweet: Very excited that ballots are being counted at the Board of Elections today. 12:51 PM Dec 6th
Monica Day - Monica is a local traffic news reporter for WCMH NBC4 who’s broadcasts can be seen every weekday morning. She was also recently crowned Miss Ohio USA 2008 and went on to win the Miss Congeniality title in the Miss USA Pageant. Monica also serves on the Advisory Board for the upcoming 614 Magazine.
Recent Tweet: Has anyone ever been to Punxsutawney pa? Planning a trip for Groundhog Day and trying to figure out the bar/restaurant/entertainment angle 9:00 AM Jan 9th
Johnny DiLoretto - Johnny is the Entertainment & Food Critic for WTTE Fox 28, and can be seen every weekday morning on the Good Day Columbus segments. He previously worked as a film critic for The Other Paper. Johnny can also be found co-hosting “Cinema Classics”, a film commentary show featured on local radio station WCBE 90.5.
Recent Tweet: Word is I looked like a tool today w my turtleneck and T-shirt combo. 10:11 AM Jan 23rd
Diane Warren - Diane is the owner of Katzinger’s Delicatessen, a German Village institution for nearly 25 years. Diane provides both homemade sandwiches and speciality items at Katzingers, but also provides service to the entire independent restaurant community through her work as President of Dine Originals Columbus.
Recent Tweet: Trying to absorb this day. i’m exhilarated, enthralled, inspired and exhausted, happy and hopeful. plus this is my page - i should write 8:43 PM Jan 20th
John Angelo - John is the Executive Director of the Short North Business Association. The SNBA has been serving the Short North business community for over 20 years. Additionally, John has helped to create several new cultural events in the Short North in the past year including Art al Fresco and Highball Halloween.
Recent Tweet: HighBall a grand success! 1:45 PM Nov 1st
Who else do you think should be added to our list? Any suggestions?
Oh, and don’t forget… you can follow ColumbusUnderground via Twitter too.
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Related Tags: andrea cambern • artie issac • diane warren • elizabeth lessner • entrepreneurs • john angelo • johnny diloretto • ken blackwell • mary jo kilroy • monica day • pete mcginty • twitter
January 25th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Walker, I think you missed on this. While these people are certainly influential community members, most of your selections have very little value on Twitter. Lessner’s updates are private, Diane Warren has updated all of three times (the Katzinger’s Bot is a much better follow), and the Short North account just an automated announcement of blog entries.
There is an *extremely* rich Columbus community on Twitter that numbers in the 100’s. I’ll tweet this post (from @oshaughnessy) to most of them and we’ll see if we can come up with a more comprehensive list in comments.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Hmm, I won’t single out anyone on the list, but why should we be following someone who has put out a total of 24 updates??? WTF.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Thanks for the feedback guys. Volume 2 will be coming soon and will focus completely on sheer quantity of posts rather than the people behind these accounts.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
i love liz, but arty is the only one who should be on this list.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I respectfully agree with the commentors.
Also, I don’t necessarily think quantity should be the measure of your next post. Check out http://twitter.zappos.com/Columbus to get a taste of what’s being tweeted in and about Cbus (note, twitter recently cut the Zappos feed around the time of the inauguration, they are working on a workaround).
January 25th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
@walker - again, nothing against the people on the list - some of whom I follow, but the list is not quality. In fact, it seems like you omitted anyone who might directly compete with you on a business level who coincidentally have the most quality. Someone like Jen Myers (no relation) or Lisa Dilman are much more interesting to follow and better capture the community spirit of Twitter than someone who is tweeting/ spamming once a month to promote an organization.
I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, but the contrast is ironic.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Volume isn’t really a good measure of value either. If that were the case, the Dispatch headline bot that mindlessly spews vital statistics and letters to the editor would win out. (sorry for mini-Dispatch rant)
Twitter is about interconnectedness and conversation. @wyliemac and @danielskreened individually have more value on Twitter than the entire above list. It is extremely hard to sort out.
I’d start by looking at @Jason_WCMH @rockson @floozyspeak @CaraKeithley and @CherylHarrison. Work from there.
P.S. Thanks for fixing the double reply.
–Fixed the missing underscore in Jason’s handle.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Walker, your list is fine though the responses to it might be the strangest thing I’ve ever read on CU.
Bob.os - I’m not sure why knowing what people eat for dinner or a bunch of replies to other people’s updates (making them utterly pointless unless you follow them too) are useful to anyone or would garner someone the title of a “must follow” in your book.
Couldn’t even find jasonwcmh, fyi.
Personally, I still don’t really understand the value of twitter though I am responsible for tweeting ridiculous crap myself.
What one may call interesting, others may think is a ridiculous waste of time.
ETA: Since I do all my tweeting from my phone, I actually hate people that post more than a few times a day because it might drop something off I’m interested in. There’s been quite a few people I’ve dumped because I would check it and EVERY update in my list was them giving play by play comments about a freakin football game. And I love football….
January 25th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
And what about Frozen Twinkies? ;-)
January 25th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Twitter is my help desk.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
2 things:
1. props to walker for posting something controversial and inspiring so much respectful disagreement! You truly are the sean hanity of columbus news.
2. my top 3. (and I want yours too:)
a. jonmyers
b. Irene_expCols
c. slimgoodies
man, that is so subjective. twitter really is about the *forgetting the word* convergence, coming together of everything, etc. ..
January 25th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
“Sean Hanity of Columbus News” LOLz.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
This is a list of people who I find to be interesting personalities for one reason or another. I had to pick and choose who to include in order to keep the list somewhat short and readable. I thought about adding a disclaimer stating that anyone not on this list should not feel shunned or excluded (not even my business rival arch-nemesis Lisa the Waitress) but I thought that would be pretty much common sense.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
After re-reading the comments, I think some might not quite understand why I chose the people that I did. These are people with some amount of name recognition in Columbus. These are our “celebrities”. Liz is our Tina Fey and Ken Blackwell is our MC Hammer.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Usually something that reads “…You Should Be Following…” would suggest there is a basis for that statement. I just assumed the “reason” we should be following is because those in the list had something interesting, entertaining or of quality to say.
I guess I didn’t fully consider the “celebrity” factor and that fact of celebrity as much as I should. Celebrity + said reasons. I need to get on the ball and reconsider following Shaq and Brittany’s PR team.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
“FWIW, I wanted to include Gordon Gee, Jim Tressel, Mayor Coleman, and Jack Hanna on this list. Why aren’t our biggest Columbus celebrities twittering?”
Because they are busy working.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Are you trying to say that Twitter is for slackers? ;)
January 25th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
It also only takes a few seconds to post a Twitter update. It’s a simple way to reach an audience on a personal level. I agree that more local people of prominence, companies, etc…should be using Twitter, Facebook and other modern forms of communication to keep their audience in the loop.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I follow several of them like Lessner and Angelo already, but the only reason I would follow a right ring religious zealot like Ken Blackwell is to know what areas to stay away from to avoid him.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Ha ha ha, thanks, I think? I wondered why I had so many new “follow” requests tonight.
I am the world’s worst Twitterer, I’m not sure I get it. Any sentiment I have is too mundane to document and I know that. I’m not sure that anyone wants to hear about the giant rocks of concrete we pulled out of Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace on Friday, I don’t even like thinking about it. I like the “help desk” aspect that Jon refers to, I just never think to use it that way.
I like to read Surly Shirly, Jim Coe and Slimgoodies.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I love Twitter and as a platform it’s the most interesting social technology for me that’s come around in a while. There are no hard and fast rules really except - it should be a conversation. Especially if the content is coming from an individual instead of an entity. Liz you’re a great Twitterer. You talk with not at people. Same with some others on the list.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:03 am
I agree that the strongest part of twitter is how open ended the platform is, but I don’t think it *always* has to be about a conversation. Many people subscribe to twitter accounts that publish information such as weather reports or traffic data not because they want a two-way conversation with it, but because they want to have that content delivered to them on the platform that they choose to spend their time online with.
Personally, I’m mostly a twitter lurker. I like to keep tabs on what friends, family, and other interesting people are doing, but I’m also a bit turned off by the fact that twitter is filterless. Adding something like customizable categories would definitely kill some of the beautiful simplicity, but I’d love to be able to follow @somedude-workchat and filter out @somedude-eatingdinnerchat.
The 10 people listed up top all seem to use twitter for different purposes. Are some purposes better than others? I think that’s subjective and depends upon what sort of user experience you’re looking to get out of it.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:46 am
The more I use twitter the more I find that it is a different thing to different people, and it has one big strength that makes that possible: it is a feelings-free zone; you are free to follow people who interest you and unfollow those that don’t. Just about every time I hear or read someone saying what Twitter is and what it’s for, I find myself wondering what they’re smoking. That makes it tough to recommend people - I think Walker’s list of local notables who tweet was cool to read and I enjoyed checking it out.
(edited for grammar)
January 26th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Great post and a great conversation. It’s nice to see folks digging in to the different aspects of Twitter and what makes someone (or something) a “Must-Follow” on Twitter.
Personally, I follow stuff in all different categories - friends w/ random chatter, newsbots, local newsfolks who are interactive and NOT bots (Kurt Ludlow and Jason_WCMH are probably my personal favs in that category), celebs, and some Twitterati.
I think there are a LOT of good, useful applications for Twitter. And a lot of mindless garbage.
Which makes it just like the rest of the Internet…
January 26th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
has anyone noticed … it’s always tough to explain something called “Twitter.” people automatically get defensive if they do it. it’s like Facebook. such a silly name.
why didn’t they give it a more stately name?
also, Walker has competition? i thought he was an enigma