Neolane - posting: central panel to post tweets and Facebook updates - sharing: place sharing buttons on emails - tracking: measure clicks on links in system-generated posts. demand generation software vendor comparison social media marketing marketing automation systemsSocial media is arguably overhyped as a marketing trend: it gets well under 10% of marketing budgets (different surveys have figures from 3% to 8%) and results are questionable (it was rated the least effective content marketing tactic in a recent MarketingProfs study ). Results are summarized in the table below. MORE >>

But even including that, the first year cost for most of these will be less.) : Manticore Technology : a full-featured demand generation product. See my 2007 blog entry for some information or buy the Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems for a detailed review. The company has a low profile but has been selling its demand generation product for nearly ten years. More important to people who need it, the company offers partner management and channel sales management products that integrate with its demand generation offering. Just kidding.or Maybe next week. MORE >>

The company’s marketing is tightly targeted at very small businesses (under 25 employees) but its marketing features are competitive with demand generation products aimed at much larger firms. Three of the five core demand generation functions are clearly there: outbound email, Web forms, and lead nurturing campaigns. This differs from other demand generation vendors, who nearly always host those pages themselves. To me, this is the essence of a lead nurturing system and probably the critical feature of demand generation in general. At least it’s worth a closer look. MORE >>

Tags: software as a service demand generation marketing automation natural language processing artificial intelligence content aggregation MORE >>

Predictive Marketing Blog by Bob Hodgson reported that eight Tweets by a high tech conference with 350 followers generated 10 completed registrations worth $15,000. Summary: some published examples of "hard" ROI from social media. As part of the preparation for next Tuesday’s Webinar with 1to1 Media and Neolane (register here ), I poked around for some concrete examples of ROI from social media. Here’s what I found. Socialnomics blog by Erik Qualman offers a dynamic video with 33 “salient examples and data points” about social media ROI. MORE >>