The top 20 “powerful” Australians on Twitter, according to KPMG

Entrepreneurs Holly Ransom, Mark Woodland, Mark Bouris and Julian Plummer are among 20 Australian business leaders nominated by KPMG as leading the way when it comes to using Twitter. Ransom, who is the founder and chief executive of Emergent, has come in at third position on KPMG Australia’s inaugural ‘Twitter power list’ with her 93,000 Twitter followers. Woodland is the creator of childcare administration platform Myxplor and number five on KPMG’s list, thanks in part to his 168,000 followers.

Yellow Brick Road founder and chair Mark Bouris, who has close to 28,000 followers on Twitter, is number 13 on the list, while Midwinter co-founder Julian Plummer, who has over 3000 Twitter followers, is number 20.

KPMG said in a statement the list of influential Tweeters is based on “quantitative and qualitative data” taken between January 1 and May 10 this year. To make the list, Twitter accounts had to be for an individual who is a chief executive, managing director or chairperson for a company, business, national division, advocacy group or peak body that is Australian or headquartered in Australia.

Topping the list is Telstra chief executive Andy Penn, who has more than 38,000 followers, followed by Jason Killens, the chief executive of SA Ambulance, who has more than 3000 Twitter followers and is second on the list.

Also in the top 10 are Kon Karapanagiotidis, chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre; Brendon Gale, chief executive of the Richmond Football Club; Frank Quinlan, chief executive of Mental Health Australia; Pip Marlow, managing director of Microsoft Australia; Michael Ebeid, managing director of SBS; and Andrew Fagan, chief executive of the Adelaide Football Club.

“Social media, and Twitter in particular, has given a mega-phone to business leaders, a platform that previously did not exist for them to express their point of view,” said James Griffin, director of KPMG Social Media Intelligence, in the statement.

“Conversely, it has also placed the leaders at the coal face of customer discussions, giving a completely unvarnished (and in some instances painful) direct perspective on how their organisation is faring in the eyes of the customer.

“As more businesses utilise social channels for business purposes however, it can be said that the risk of not being on social media today outweighs the risk of being on it.”