As somebody who works in online marketing, I spend most of my day connected to the many different social media sites that I work with in one way or another. But I don’t just use them during the working day, so I like to make sure – for instance – my Twitter feed is as varied as my tastes are. I follow industry folk, a smattering of celebrities, friends and family, but I also follow some slightly more random accounts.

Some of my favourite people to follow are those representing the kids TV shows which we enjoy watching with Robert. I’m not entirely sure why to be honest – it’s not like Robert is going to understand if I say to him “Hey, you’ll never guess what Driver Dan just tweeted!”. But it makes me happy, and I suspect other parent’s feel the same. So, for other tweeting parents, I thought I’d highlight some of my favourites…

Driver Dan

I think the eponymous driver of Driver Dan’s Story Train was the first kid-related Twitter account I came in to contact with, when the folks behind the account replied to something I tweeted about the show. Since then I’ve been a firm fan. Why he only has 206 followers is a mystery to me, especially when he posts some VERY funny stuff like: “‘At last we shall reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have our revenge. Eh Loopy?” (for the uninitiated, DD is voiced by the excellent Peter Serafinowicz – who also voiced Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I)

Chuggington

With a much more as-you’d-expect 3,000+ followers, Chuggington benefits from (apparently) a big following in the US – something I never realised until hearing Kevin Smith and his wife Jen singing the Chuggington theme tune on their ‘Plus One’ podcast. My only criticism of the Chuggington Twitter account is that they mostly seem to tweet about their US followers and showings, so I’m assuming it’s run by PBS or whoever shows it there. Which is a bit odd, since it’s actually a British-made show, but hey. It’s still a very fun account to follow, and they do some very fun interactive contests for parents to do with their children.

The Octonauts

If you’ve ever read my blog before, you’ll know how much of an Octonauts fan I am… er, I mean Robert is. Well, they don’t disappoint when it comes to social networking, with a REALLY active community on Facebook as well as here on Twitter. They’re great at replying to parents – both positive comments and negative – and the amount of pictures being uploaded by parents is a good indication of how well received they are.

The Numberjacks

Robert is a big fan of the Numberjacks, though it’s not made it on to the (short) list of children’s TV shows that I would happily download for him to watch again. But the thing I find most annoying about the show is some of the accents of the numbers (sorry, Numberjacks fans!) – which happily isn’t an issue when you’re just following them online. Therefore I can heartily recommend their particular brand of number-based fun. Just don’t let the Spooky Spoon catch up…

The Cbeebies Presenters

I hope they won’t mind me mentioning them here – none of them have “private” accounts, so I assume they’ll happily accept a few more followers. Most of the main presenters are pretty active on Twitter, and all seem like a very nice bunch indeed – I was a bit tentative when I started following them. After all, nobody wants to see their favourite kid-TV presenters tweeting “Oh man, I got absolutely off my face last night!” do they? But none of them are like that. Here’s the four I have found (Cerrie hasn’t tweeted yet) – if there are others, do let me know, so I can complete my “Cbeebies Online Top Trumps” set : ) No sign of Justin, sadly.

Andy Day – Cerrie Burnell – Alex Winters – Sid Sloane

So, those are my recommendations. Let me know if I’ve missed any good’uns!