My new obsession with Twitter (follow me as @draab) has led to several messages from people who seemed to have trouble choosing between Eloqua and Marketo. This is a bit perplexing, since those products are at the opposite ends of the spectrum: Marketo being relatively low cost / limited functionality / easier to learn, and Eloqua being higher cost / richer functionality / takes more training. It shouldn't be hard to figure out which one suits you better. But what really concerns me is that these people are apparently limiting their consideration to just those two products. Just kidding.or MORE >>

You can do a Twitter search for messages on that keyword, scan the Twitter profiles and Klout scores of people sending those messages, and push a button to add the interesting people to your contact list. Once you’ve added a contact, Nimble will automatically display their most recent Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn activity every time you call up their record and let you send them messages through any of those products or by email. I had an intriguing demonstration yesterday from social CRM vendor Nimble. Here’s how it works. MORE >>

Digging a little deeper within the social media category, the women’s blogger community BlogHer reported in its 2009 Women and Social Media Study that as of March 2009, 75% of women participated in social networks, compared with 55% who read blogs, 40% read message boards or forums, and 16% update status on platforms like Twitter. The Twitter figures are surely much higher by now.) The top three were: blogging (34%), microblogging (Twitter) (29%) and Search engine optimization (28%). m sitting on a panel next week that will discuss long-term marketing trends. for email. MORE >>

But assuming that’s the not case – and I do after all read Twitter – the escalator analogy is not better than a funnel at illustrating today’s situation. Okay, I freely admit that headlines like “the marketing funnel is dead” are a cheap trick to attract attention. But I swear I came by this one honestly. Too tired to do any serious work on a recent plane flight, I scanned a random white paper that argued the traditional idea of a funnel didn’t capture the need to treat customers individually as they move towards a purchase. Now I was fully awake, and not in a good way. MORE >>

The company also monitors Twitter, Facebook company pages, Quora, and LinkedIn profiles of people within each sales person’s network. 'There’s nothing new about using public information to identify business opportunities: it’s why lawyers chase ambulances and bankers phone lottery winners. But the Internet has exponentially grown the amount of data available and made it easily accessible. Lattice Engines was founded in 2006 to fill this gap. It supplements this with data from the clients'' own systems including customer profiles, Web site visits, and purchases. MORE >>