The Ryder Cup of Word of Mouth, Buzz and Viral

With the advent of golf's best entertainment showcase about to take place, I thought I would provide the WOM version of the famed Ryder Cup tournament.

Why not pit the top 36 bloggers from the USA that speak on the subject of word of mouth, viral, buzz, influence and the engaging brand against the top 36 international bloggers that muse on the same subject?

Unlike some of the social media- and tech dedicated marketing and media bloggers, these broad-minded bloggers and company heads (below) have distinguished themselves by helping visitors understand how ideas spread, online and offline, through a range of different strategies and tactics and each recognizes the importance of having brands getting noticed, talked about and advocated in a 2.0 world.

In my opinion, they are much closer to explaining the purpose and benefits of a range of new media, web 2.0, co-creation, social networks and other web, cultural and social phenomenon.

For my social media appetite, they are also among the best at understanding the art and science of buzz, not getting too hung up on the Silicon Valley gossip, the backslapping self-promotion (with the race exception), the technology minutiae, the journalistic ethic or political meaning behind peer-generated ideas, content and advocacy.

To my knowledge, no one has yet built the all star list of word of mouth savvy blogs - too often our best are muddled with overarching marketing categories (The Power 150) or not fully descriptive, catch-all  social media lists. 

So here is my list, I've visited and read them all - my apologies to some of the non-english speaking International squad (there are limits to my comprehension even with pictures) and to some inevitable oversights.

Acknowledging my blind spots,  I've left 6 spots open for your own submissions on the U.S. and international side. Submit your thoughts on who publishes most credibly on the topics of influence, word of mouth, persuasion, participation, community, buzz, experiential and viral topics.

Perhaps we should have a favourite post tournament?  Any volunteers as Captains for the U.S. Side?

  The USA Team

1. Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell - Church of the Customer (Austin, Texas)

2. Andy Sernovitz - Damn! I Wish I Thought of That! (Chicago, Illinois)

3. Pete Blackshaw - CGM (Cincinnati, Ohio)

4. Jim Nail - Influence 2.0 (Boston, Massachusetts)

5. Idil Cakim - dot WOM (New York, New York)

6. Jeremiah Owyang - Web Strategist (San Francisco, Calfornia)

7. Rohit Bhargava - Influential Marketing (Washington, D.C.)

8. Owen Mack - CoBrandIt (Boston, Massechussetts)

9. Walter Karl - WOM Study  (Boston, Massachusetts)

10. Fred Reichheld - Net Promoter - (Boston, Massachusetts)

11. Max Kalehoff - Attention Max (New York, New York)

12. Olivier Blanchard - The Brand Builder (Greenville, South Carolina)

13. Charlene Li - Charlene Li (San Francisco, California)

14. Sam Decker - Bazaar Blog and Decker Marketing (Austin, Texas)

15. Joseph Jaffe - Jaffe Juice (New York, New York)

16. John Moore - Brand Autopsy (Austin, Texas)

17. Peter Kim - Being Peter Kim (Austin, Texas)

18. Mack Collier - The Viral Garden (Florence, Alabama)

19. Spike Jones - Brains on Fire (Greenville, South Carolina)

20. Ron McDaniel - Buzzoodle (Cleveland, Ohio)

21.John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing (Kansas City, Missouri)

22. Kim Proctor - How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences (Los Angeles, California)

23. Rob Walker - Murketing (Savannah, Georgia)

24. Lois Kelly - Foghound (Providence, Rhode Island)

25. Ann Handley - MarketingProfs (Boston, Massachusetts)

26. Shiv Singh - Going Social Now (New York, New York)

27. Laurent Flores - Customer Listening Blog (New York, New York)

28. Tom Asacker - A Clear Eye (Manchester, New Hampshire)

29. Francois Gossieaux - Emergence Marketing (Boston, Massachusetts)

30. Geoff Livingston - The Buzz Bin (Washington, B.C.)

31. Dave Balter - BzzAgent (Boston, Massachussetts)

32. John Bell - Digital Influence Mapping Project (Washington, D.C.)

33. Todd Tweedy - Word Spreads Quickly (Charlottesville, Virginia)

34. Marta Kagan - the Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius (Boston, Massachusetts)

35. Greg Stielstra - Pyromarketing (Nashville, Tennessee)

36. Willow Baum Lundgren - Small Planet (Kansas City, Missouri)

37. Amber Naslund - The Brand Box (Chicago, Illinois)

38. Greg Verdino - GregVerdino.com (New York, New York)

39. Paul Chaney - Conversational Media Marketing (Lafayette, Louisiana)

40. August Ray - Experience - The Blog (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

41-42??? Your Turn

The International Team

1. Frederick Herrman - Netszkobold (Germany)

2. Emmanuel Vivier - Culture-Buzz (Luxembourg)

3. Sean Moffitt - Buzz Canuck  (Canada)

4. Rachel Clarke - Behind the Buzz (England)

5. Gavin Heaton - Servant of Chaos (Australia)

6. Sam Flemming - SeeISee.com (China)

7. Ian McKee - The Power of Influence (Singapore) 

8. Mirko Pollera/Alex Giordano -  Ninja Marketing (Italy)

9. Russell Davies - Russell Davies (England)

10. Simon McDermott - Attentio (Belgium)

11. Andy Lark - Andy Lark  (New Zealand)

12. Max Lenderman - Experience the Message (Canada)

13. Paul Marsden - Viral Culture (England)

14. Laurent Valembert -  Marketing Alternatif (France)

15. Mike Rowe - 1000 heads (UK)

16. Par Thunstrom - Buzzador (Sweden)

17. CLeber Martins - Blog de Guerrilha (Brazil)

18  Willem Sodderland - Buzzer (Netherlands)

19. Jean Nasr - Alt-Buzz (France)

20. Igor Beuker - Viral Tracker (Netherlands)

21. Grant McCracken - This Blog Sits At...(Canada)

22. Mitch Joel - Six Pixels of Separation (Canada)

23. Justin Kirby - DMC (U.K.)

24. Sebastian Provencher - Praized  (Canada)

25. Alan Moore/Tomi Ahonen - Communities Dominate Brands (England/Hong Kong)

26. Anna Farmery - The Engaging Brand (UK)

27. Neil Perkin - Only Dead Fish (UK)

28. Johnnie Moore - Johnny Moore's Werblog (UK)

29. Joanna Kocieba - BuzzReporter (Poland)

30. Hjortur Smarason - Marketing Safari (Iceland)

31. Krishna De - Biz Growth News (Ireland)

32. Fred Cavazza - FredCavazza.net (France)

33. Bart van Der Aa - Icemedia (Netherlands)

34. Gianluca Artesano - Frozen Frogs (Italy)

35. Ivo Laurin - Outbreak (Czech) 

36. Chris Abraham - Chris Abraham (Germany)

37. Mark Earls - Herd (U.K.)

38. David Eicher - Brainwash (Germany)

39. Pepe Wietholz - Buzz People(Germany)

40 Christian Wilfer/Carolina Schulz -  Viralmarketing.de (Germany)

41. Dean Hunt - DeanHunt.com - (UK)

41-42??? Your Turn

Spread the word, the Game is afoot!

Addendum - also if you could, take the following Agent Wildfire Buzz Report survey about word of mouth behaviors and practices in return for a chance for your favourite 12 business books.