LinkedIn is firmly ensconced among the “big 3″ social networks for marketing and business purposes, and though its base of 80 million members is far smaller than the 600 million users of Facebook, its impact in B2B marketing is larger. According to recent research , 32% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to generate leads, versus just 16% who do so on Facebook. Nearly half of B2B marketers using social media view LinkedIn as an effective channel, while only one in three say the same of Facebook. How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile. New LinkedIn Features. MORE >>

How good is your “trust-building?&# Before you can convert readers to clients, before you can get them to download your digital information and build your list, you’ve got to build trust. The B2B Manifesto: 5 Imperatives and 6 Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention: page 19: “You need to leverage trust-builders into each step of the (buying) journey: case studies. don’t think enough of you do a good job of trust building. But hardly anybody talks about trust building. Share this on LinkedIn. Think about it. awards. MORE >>

And many of them say the same thing to me: “LinkedIn just isn’t working for me.” This isn’t true for everyone, but I think it is true for a lot of people who are frustrated that LinkedIn isn’t working for them: They wanted until they were unemployed to start using it. If you are “in transition” right now (only old people like me say “unemployed” anymore), you have a lot of company. We’ve changed into a permanently transient economy where few people are as lucky as I was to spend 30 years at one company. MORE >>

Today LinkedIn launched a new news aggregation and curation service called LinkedIn Today. Here is a short video from the company explaining what it is. So the story here is not the technology, but the fact that this type of service is now available on LinkedIn, making it extremely relevant for B2B marketers. What does the launch of LinkedIn Today mean for marketers? LinkedIn is a huge social network, has a strong following and usage among b2b companies and is the largest business / career focused community in the world. Connect with HubSpot MORE >>

In both instances the answer is the same: Yes, you should always invest more in building your company’s pipeline! Without a strong pipeline, your company’s ability to succeed and meet customer and stakeholder expectations is greatly diminished. Measuring cycle time also increases reps’ sensitivity to, and understanding of how they are able to move different kinds of opportunities, building their agility and perceptiveness, and ultimately increasing their pipeline velocity and close rates, and forecast accuracy. You can follow Tom on LinkedIn or his blog MORE >>