Last week, I had the extreme honor of having an article I wrote published on Mashable. You can check it out here, and when you do, please make sure to click through the links for the people who are mentioned and used as examples. There’s a great story behind them, and the article being written in the first place, that there simply wasn’t enough time, or room, to get into in that article…

It started as a simple conversation I had last summer with one of my favorite guys whom I’ve never met in person, David Mullen. I don’t even remember what David and I were talking about, but somehow we got on the topic of lists, and how we both really don’t like them. We especially dislike lists of people – you know, the ones that say ‘these are the top 15/30/50’ of whatever the category may be. And especially when it comes to social media, there are many lists that have the same people on them. This got me thinking: wouldn’t it be great to see people who are awesome in their own right, but who rarely get named on lists, lifted up? And even better, what if they were lifted up by the very people who occupy those spots on top lists? I started verbalizing my thoughts on this to David, and he got excited about it. He said it would be a great blog topic, and I agreed. So I started thinking about the best way to accomplish this, and the following is the background of my experiment in paying it “socially” forward…

The experiment: asking some of the most well-known social media professionals to recommend someone they think is a rising star in social media and someone to keep an eye on in the future. I would then contact those who were recommended and interview them on their careers, how they achieved a level of success that had gotten them noticed by such a well-known person, and where they see social media heading over the next year.

The players: among those I reached out to, I received recommendations from:

• Amber Naslund – Director of Community, Radian6
• Dan Schawbel – Personal Branding Expert and author of Me 2.0
• Peter Shankman – Founder, Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
• Steve Rubel- SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
• Chris Brogan – President, New Marketing Labs
• David Armano – SVP Digital, Edelman
• Elisa Camahort Page – Co-founder and COO, BlogHer
• Jason Falls – Principal at Social Media Explorer LLC
• Iggy Pintado – CEO/CNO, ConnectGen
• Bryan Person – Founder, Social Media Breakfast and Social Media Evangelist, LiveWorld
• Jennifer Leggio – blogger with ZDNet
• Aliza Sherman – Co-Owner and Social Media Marketing Strategist, Conversify and host of the weekly podcast “The Digital Marketer’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Building Your Business with Web Tools”
• Tony Hsieh – CEO, Zappos.com
• Jeremiah Owyang – Partner, Altimeter Group
• Mitch Joel – President, Twist Image
• Brian Solis – Principal, FutureWorks PR and Blogger at PR 2.0 & bub.blicio.us

My method of selection for reaching out to these individuals? People whom I follow, read, learn from, respect, and who have obviously achieved some high levels of success in their own careers, as evidenced in the sheer number of times they are referenced and requested for engagements. This is a small sampling of what I would consider to be the best of the best in social media, but since I couldn’t take years to complete this project, I had to keep it to a short list. There are many, many others whom I did not get to communicate with who should be considered social media success stories – but these were the people who responded when I reached out. For that alone, I owe a debt of gratitude – thank you to each of the people mentioned above for taking the time to respond to a girl you probably never heard of before.

My request to these people was to recommend one or two individuals whom they see as being ‘on the rise’ in their respective careers, and whom they see being a major player when it comes to social media in the coming months. This resulted in about 20 recommendations of people to speak with. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to connect with everyone, but those interviewed were:

• Dave Knox – Brand Manager, Digital Innovation, Procter & Gamble
• Kipp Bodnar – Social Media Marketing Manager, Howard, Merrell & Partner
• Len Kendall – Digital Account Supervisor, GolinHarris
• Jennifer Leggio – blogger with ZDNet
• Daniel Honigman – Digital Supervisor, Weber Shandwick
• Sarah Evans – President, Sevans Strategy
• Jessica Randazza – Senior Associate with Digitas
• Ken Burbary – Director of Social Media, Ernst & Young
• Nadia Jones, Stacey Ferguson, & Nyasha Smith – the 3 ladies behind www.MamaLaw.com
• Keith Burtis – Owner at Keith Burtis Consulting
• Laura Roeder – Principal of Roeder Studios
• Amanda Mooney – Sr. Social Media Strategist, Edelman
• Kneale Mann – Marketing and Social Media Strategist, YouIntegrate
• Venessa Miemis – blogger (emergent by design), currently pursuing a Masters in Media Studies at the New School
• Kaitlyn Wilkins – VP of Digital Strategy, Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Group

Those recommended but unable to connect before the article was published included:

• DJ Waldow – Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
• Ruth Sylte – Principal Consultant, Manitou Heights Group Inc.
• Jade Craven – Founder, Social Media Solutions
• Julia Roy – Senior Manager of New Media, Coach
• Bill Cody – Las Vegas real estate
• Jun Loayza – President, SocialMediaMarketing.com and Chief Marketing Officer, Viralogy

As I began reaching out to these people, I started thinking how this could turn into an annual ‘pay it forward’ project. My plan, as I shared with them, was to contact each of them at the end of the year to get their recommendations for the next group, and so on and so forth. Every person involved in this project indicated that they loved the pay-it-forward concept – which told me I was talking to the right group of people: people who were already giving back out of the abundance of success in their own lives, and who saw a great opportunity to continue to do so.

I learned so much in the few months I spent communicating with and getting to know these people. I of course learned some similarities they each possessed, as discussed in the Mashable article. But I also learned that all of them have a strong desire to see other people achieve success, and an equally strong desire to help make that possible. I am honored to have had the chance to get to know a group of people with such big hearts.

And so, to stay true to my original plan when I initially reached out, I am going to be posting short spotlight posts here on each of the recommended people over the coming weeks/months. The plan will be to do one per week – giving you a chance to get to know each of them and put them on your radar as a rising star.

As a final note – I want to say a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to either recommend someone for this project, or who took time out of their busy schedules to have a conversation with me and let me get to know you. It has been an absolute pleasure, and I look forward to doing this again next year!