The B2B Marketer's Blind Spot and Other Marketing Stories of the Week

Oh man, how good does that egg look?

It got me thinking ... you know what would make this Sunday round-up better? If I could somehow make this a Sunday marketing brunch. Got your two eggs sunny side up? Crispy bacon with a side of the most tantalizing marketing stories of the week? Alright then. Start sipping your mimosa and join me in reviewing the most interesting inbound marketing stories of the week!

B2B Marketers Have a Blind Spot: The Buyer's Journey From Forrester

This story comes to us from Jeff Ernst's Forrester blog. He discusses the transformation of the B2B marketer's focus, saying the process is changing faster than marketers can keep up with; more and more marketers are being held to direct revenue growth goals, as opposed to less tangible analytics such as reach or awareness. This is a change that many marketers aren't prepared for, and has resulted in a tendency to neglect an essential portion of the buying cycle: the middle of the funnel . He argues that the marketer's role doesn't end at just attracting leads, but that lead nurturing is just as essential to marketers' success as things like public relations and event planning. We couldn't agree more! Check out the full story here .

Facebook Launches New & Improved Recommendations Plugin for Websites

As usual, Facebook changed something this week. The latest update from the ever-evolving social network is a concept called the 'Recommendation Bar' for websites to install. But wait, didn't they already have that? Why yes, they did. But this is a little bit different, in that the Recommendation Bar is more interactive and auto-publishes stories that users have read to their Timelines and newsfeeds in order to further bolster engagement and referral traffic . It's the latest addition to Facebook's Social Plugins Suite, which includes the external Like button, Subscribe button, and Facebook Comments section. Still confused as to what exactly changed? We break it down for you in the full story, so check it out here . 

How to Pin with Purpose on Pinterest From MarketingProfs

It's been far too long since we've discussed Pinterest in the weekly round-up. Thankfully, MarketingProfs offered up this nice feature on pinning with purpose. The article offers tips for pinning marketers of all levels to make the most of their business Pinterest account . The tips cover both strategy and common mistakes, such as always remembering to label your visual content. The importance of scheduling pins in advance, instead of carelessly pinning everything from your website to Pinterest in one day, is also highlighted. Finally -- and perhaps most importantly -- the article emphasizes that your pinned content should contain links to optimized landing pages . After all, you do want to generate leads from Pinterest, right? Check out the full story here .

Google "Reveals Index Secrets": Charts Indexing of Your Site Over Time From Search Engine Land

Our friends at Search Engine Land brought us the latest update from another company never short on changes -- Google, of course. They've released a tool called Index Status that charts the number of pages on your site that have been indexed over time. The information shown is purported to be accurate, albeit on a lag time of several weeks. The tool shows the pages on your site that have been crawled and indexed, the total amount of pages on your website that have been crawled, and the pages that have been blocked from crawling. The full story contains a lot of in-depth analysis on exactly how this data can become actionable for you, so be sure to check it out here .

72 Fascinating Social Media Marketing Facts for 2012 From JeffBullas.com

Our last feature comes from JeffBullas.com, and it's a spectacular list of 72 facts about social media marketing and inbound marketing . The article cites one of our favorite statistics in its intro -- that leads generated through social media and content cost half as much as leads acquired from outbound marketing. The post then launches into what essentially amounts to the state of social media marketing in 2012. For example, did you know that only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated? Or that 52% of Facebook users have stopped following a company because its updates became too boring or repetitive? Needless to say, there's some pretty useful information in the list. Check out the full story here .

What was the best inbound marketing story you found this week? Share it with us in the comments!

Image credit: stevendepolo