Catch up on these top 5 marketing stories of the week so you’re prepared for the week ahead. The sample size was based on 200,000 websites that are using Shareaholic’s widgets. If you’re interested in seeing the full data surrounding this article, you can check out the story here. HootSuite (you know, the social media monitoring tool that integrates with HubSpot so you can monitor your leads on Twitter) is acquiring Seesmic. Interested in reading more about the acquisition? Russell Glass of MarketingProfs explains a B2B marketer’s job very accurately. MORE >>

Let's dive into what causes people to dislike tweets, and what marketers can do to be better at providing the kind of content that people want to read on Twitter. Take a look at this sample Twitter conversation, for example. Twitter is about spreading interesting content and engaging with others in a meaningful way, not complaining about things that have gone wrong for you, personally. Such a long day at work; looking into marketing automation solution @HubSpot to make lead nurturing easier going forward. — HubSpot (@HubSpot) March 11, 2012. MORE >>

When you ask marketers who their competitors are, they can rattle off a list quite quickly, and perhaps a few anecdotes about notable differentiators like product features, sales techniques, and site structure. Maybe they'd like to know more information about them (say, their marketing techniques?) If you're looking to compete on inbound marketing techniques , you can actually find out quite a lot about your competitors by performing competitive content analysis. On HubSpot's homepage, for example, one can find 'Marketing Resources' further down the homepage. MORE >>

Being data-driven is a very valuable quality to have as an inbound marketer. And while we usually talk about data in terms of using analytics to make better marketing decisions , there are definitely other areas of your marketing that can benefit from a little data here and there. If not, peppering your content with data can help you boost the quality, credibility, and interest factor of your marketing content -- leading to more views and conversion opportunities! HubSpot's own Dan Zarrella uses this technique in a lot of his own research. MORE >>

And while influencers get excited for their potential to be recognized by top brands, social media marketers also have plenty of reasons to be excited for this cool new tool. This post will break down all the new features Klout Brand Squads will provide, and why they matter to marketers. How Marketers Can Benefit: If someone loves you enough to be listed as a top ten influencer, you better be sure to convert that influencer into a customer (or leverage their influence in some other beneficial way if they're not a prospect, such as a partnership of some sort)! MORE >>