Follow Friday: For a healthy dose of New York Citys best media #FF

Twitter is obviously where real-time lives (mostly). It is an essential networking and conversational tool. Brands should devise a smart plan to organically be relevant and successful on Twitter. The more authentic and real-time your conversation is, the better you will perform as a marketer on Twitter. Twitter and the plethora of research tools that have been built on top of it provide a really powerful place to start listening into trends, influencers, conversations, and jumping in.

-Nathaniel Perez is the Head of Social Experience atSapientNitro, a global, integrated marketing services company.

For the past two weeks, Ive interviewed dozens of social media experts who manage big brands like Intel, government agencies like NASA and media accounts like Fast Companys. This weekend, well unleash a series of 18 interviews with 15 companies showcasing the amazing and hard working individuals behind your favorite social media accounts. For this weeks Follow Friday selection, Ive pulled a few of the smartest media brands from the upcoming list to give you an appetizer before this weekends feast. In no particular order, here are 8 excellent Twitter accounts you should be following and the sexy pros behind them.

Fast Company

@FastCompany: Official Twitter feed for Fast Company magazine and FastCompany.com. Our own unique blend of innovation in technology, design, practical advice, inspiration.

• Followers: 365,098
• Klout: 82

The human behind the account?Sheena Medina.

Fast Company tweets once every 30 minutes or less, so its a fresh blend of content ranging from business insights like The Paradox Of Expanded Choices: What Too Much Of A Good Thing Means For Consumerto! random news like Arizona Ski Resort Plans To Make Powder Out Of Sewage.

Flavorpill

@Flavorpill: Russ Marshalek,@russmarshalek, Social Media Manager at Flavorpill, shares top culture picks from Flavorwire and the web.

• Followers: 31,339
• Klout: 72

The human behind the account? Flavorpill was kind enough to shout out to:Russ Marshalek

Content on Flavorpill ranges from 5 true stories from famous brooklyn authors, toGhostly Images of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Its really rich in dialogue, in fact half the tweets on Flavorpills home page are conversations with followers. If you dig random nuggets of culture, particularly if you live in New York, this is a great account to follow.

The New York Times

@NYTimes: Where the Conversation Begins. Follow breaking news, NYTimes.com home page articles, special features and more.

• Followers: 3,629,522
• Klout:86

@NYTimes on Twitter is what we call a cyborg account, meaning its a combination of automated homepage headlines and manual tweets, retweets and replies done by Lexi and Liz. Since we became the social media editors, weve put a greater emphasis on humanizing the main account. Anecdotally, interacting with the @nytimes community more heavily has i! ncreased the level of engagement and the reach of our journalism on social media. Weve also learned a lot from curating the @nytimes account that has informed how we strategize with individual news desks. In this time, weve seen our follower count grow to over 3.6 million on Twitter.

The humans behind the account? Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland.

Updates happen at least once every 30 minutes and range from world news and local politics to tech and sports.

ELLE Magazine

@ELLEMagazine: The official Twitter page of ELLE Magazine, the number one fashion magazine in the world.

• Followers: 763,874
• Klout: 73

I took on ELLEs social media at the end of last summer. Our Twitter had some 200,000 followers; right now we have over 760,000 followers. We have editors who are great on Twitter, so my job overseeing the brands handle is to rep the magazine as a whole, streamline the bigger news, and promote our content in a way thats relevant and interesting to our followers. I keep it simple and straightforward, tweeting only once or twice an hour.

The human behind the account? Kristina Soriano

If youre into fashion, it doesnt get much more official than ELLE. Tweets range from New music from Florence + The Machine to Now *this* is how you wear harem pants. Im not one to devour new fashion news, but those are two tweets I wouldnt want to miss.

Vanity Fair

@VanityFair:Find out first about newly posted magazine features, exclusive slide shows and videos, and pointed commentary from the VF Daily blog.

• Followers: 261,880
• Klout: 71

The Vanity Fair voice is one of my favorite parts of the job. The magazine itself is so classic, its old Hollywood, its luxury were letting you see into our world, but from just behind that velvet rope. And for the purposes of what we do in social media were going to interact. Theres going to be transparency. We want to bring our fans inside. As a nod to the Conde family, I think you combine the sharp wit of the New Yorker with the timeless elegance of Vogue, and theres Vanity Fair.

The human behind the account?Nate Erickson

Updates come in patches of once every 2 hours to once per day. The content is wide-ranging and therefore appealing to follow if your entire Twitter stream is filled with solely industry folks.

Thrillist

@Thrillist: 19 editions and countingThrillists daily emails sift through the crap to find the newest and best the Nation is hiding.

• Followers: 30,685
• Klout: 63

Its really about connecting with fans engaging with our content. I do my best to connect with everyone that mentions Thrillist on Twitter.

The human behind the account? David Pessah

If youre a guy between the ages of 18 and 40, you need to follow Thrillist. Whether its simple advice like Pronunciation! Manuals , where to get a good cheesesteak in Philly or more expert tech advice like alerting you to the fact that this exists:

BrainPicker

@BrainPicker: Interestingness curator and semi-secret geek obsessed combinatorial creativity. Editor of Brain Pickings. Bylines for@WiredUK @TheAtlantic @DesignObserver

• Followers:91,637
• Klout: 86

Shes honestly actively contributing to the Internet being smarter on a day to day basis. I can feel my brain expanding, says FlavorpillsRuss Marshalek.

The human behind the account? Maria Popova

Tweets really do expand your brain! From information like How your ear works to explanation for three-letter acronyms like CEO, COO, CFO, WTF, Popova presents a plethora of excellent content.

Gizmodo

@Gizmodo: Technologies that change the way we live, work, love, play, think and feel. This week@caseychan will try to do the darn thing.

• Followers: 271,584
• Klout: 81

The human behind the account? Is obviously a sexy robot.

Aside from being one of the worlds most loved technology blogs, Gizmodo is a constant source of entertainment. Expect news on Hurrican! e Irene, Apples new CEO Tim Cook, black holes and tweets about chickens ejecting sperm

For more on Twitter tips read: Interview with SapientNitro: Identifying real-time opportunities in social media