Hubspot research shows that sites with blogs get 55% more traffic than sites without blogs — even if there are no readers! . 7) Indirect sales — Featuring blog-only promotions and offers or opt-in content can expose new sales leads. . In less than an hour after the earthquake hit Haiti, The Red Cross blog had news of their activities and information on how to donate.   . Building an engaged community through a business blog can be extremely difficult — sometimes impossible. There must be some good business reason they do it, right? . There better be. MORE >>

Twitter came of age in 2010, growing at a scorching pace —from 75 million users at the beginning of the year to more than 190 million by the end of December. What types of information are worth sharing, beyond blog posts? Tia Peterson praises seven features of the new Twitter interface (such as the “Recently Listed&# box, easy DM replies, and ability to send a tweet from any page) but also cites three areas that still need improvement. Ways to Not Get ReTweeted by HubSpot Blog. Best of 2010: 14 Ways Every Business Should Be Using Twitter by Inkling Media. MORE >>

Summary: MakesBridge offers a full set of marketing automation features with some special strengths that will appeal especially to small companies. HubSpot also has many micro-business clients but is not focused on them exclusively and – probably as a result – has a slightly different feature set: more Web traffic generation and no built-in contact management or shopping cart. ve previously reviewed Genoo , which supplements the standard marketing automation features with Web hosting and built-in CRM but no shopping cart. MakesBridge is another contender. MORE >>

And on the buying side, a study from the ITSMA revealed that “LinkedIn is used by 58% of the respondents to find information or to talk to colleagues about solutions in the context of a purchase. What new features should you get familiar with? New LinkedIn Features. LinkedIn New Feature – Follow Company by Success CREEations. Mark Walsh reports on company pages, another new feature added by LinkedIn in late 2010. The new layout also lets companies feature product videos as well as targeted display advertising. by My Venture Pad. Digg this! MORE >>

The following are the top items from featured sources based on social signals. Ten reasons to blog – even if nobody reads it - grow - Practical Marketing Solutions , November 7, 2010 Building an engaged community through a business blog can be extremely difficult — sometimes impossible. Social Media in B2B Marketing - Survey Results - Everything Technology Marketing , November 16, 2010 The B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn conducted a survey earlier this year to explore the rapidly changing landscape of social media in the context of B2B marketing. PR Dept? MORE >>