Back in November, I set out to write a post to highlight businesses that were using LinkedIn's company page features effectively. Needless to say, I couldn't find enough examples to create a compelling post, so in my dismay, what I actually ended up writing was, " 11 Reasons Your LinkedIn Company Page Sucks.". We recently reported that, in a study of the over 5,000 inbound marketers where we pitted LinkedIn against Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn proved to be the most effective social media channel for lead generation -- 277% more effective, in fact. MORE >>

That changed when the computer company realized 4,000 conversations about the brand were happening online every single day and the company was not present. This will give you the key words, messaging points and pain points from which you can build marketing materials. Here are the free tools Margetic advised using immediately to hear the social media conversations impacting your business: Google Alerts : Whenever your company or your industry is mentioned online, Google will notify you. Lead Generation: 5 tips to generate leads faster on LinkedIn. MORE >>

Revenue is the bottom line for everything in business, no matter how well-disguised in the form of sweetness and light — especially when it comes to selling, marketing, and building thought leadership. Are people discussing your company, your product, your services, or you? All you do is make it as easy as possible but sharing your content not only on your own site and blog but also across Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and even reddit, digg, Newsvine, YouTube and anywhere else. Social media is people and not a pit full of vipers. MORE >>

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this There’s no doubt Google made a huge splash when it unveiled Google+. From the beginning, Google+ has promised to deliver business pages for brands, and even demanded companies remove pages set up as profiles. But the built-up anticipation raises the following question: What exactly does Google Plus business pages need to woo brands, especially those in the grip of Facebook? Google Plus has been growing at healthy clip, but its overall size is tiny compared to Facebook’s 750 million users. Will your business be on Google+? MORE >>

Do you have a plan for how you can leverage StockTwits and the messages about your company? The challenge for 2012 will be to figure out how to use our Google+ page , but first I think Google needs to figure out Google+ for brands. don’t see a lot of focus there yet from Google so do not plan to spend much time there. LinkedIn : I am a long-time fan of LinkedIn for the B2B market and am very excited about 2012. Both of these additions have been much needed and further enhance LinkedIn as a social business platform. MORE >>