This week's top conversational marketing stories:

B2B Companies Ramping Up Data Driven Marketing - on Marketingprofs    

This post from Marketingprofs, with 252 social shares, explores the idea that B2B marketers are recognizing the need for a data-driven approach to marketing, and are therefore ramping up efforts in this area. “Fully eight in ten (80%) say they are spending more time and resources on critical marketing metrics in 2012," according to a survey from Pardot. However, B2B companies continue to face challenges related to capturing and using various metrics, Pardot found. "Among those surveyed, lack of time and resources is the biggest obstacle to measuring marketing (40%), followed by inadequate tools to track leads through the sales cycle (29%).” Are you spending more time and resources on critical marketing metrics this year? The majority of respondents stated that these metrics are the biggest hurdle for them in measuring their marketing efforts. Are there any other factors that affect your measurement abilities? Is data-driven marketing even a priority for you in 2012?

Earning Attention - on Chris Brogan               

This post from Chris Brogan, with more than 713 social shares, explores how to gain Twitter attention and keep it. “What makes any of this sustainable marketing and business generating if it all relies on this hand-sharing effort? If the media isn’t finding its way to the right eyes just on its own, then how is anyone selling this as really effective and important marketing? Wouldn’t effective marketing be the kind of marketing that doesn’t require you to leg-hump people for shares and retweets?” Brogan argues that the main reasons people pay attention to his content is because it is helpful and generally expresses positive opinions and useful tips. Do you find these to be quality reasons? Is there more to attracting Twitter attention?

5 Ways to Create Even More Facebook Engagement - by John Jantsch  on Ducttapemarketing    

“The benefit of Facebook over other forms of engagement is that if you gain a high level of engagement with fans you can enjoy the added benefit of exposure to their networks as well. The key, in my opinion is to spend what precious time I suspect you have for networking on Facebook focused on drawing conversation out of a smaller, but fully engaged group.” This article, which garnered more than 436 social shares, provides five practices that can help accomplish this goal. Among them are news feed interaction, post direction, and directly adding photos. Read the rest of this post and tell us what you think! Are you already using these methods? How have they worked for you? Are there any other Facebook engagement secrets that need to mentioned?

Let's keep the conversation moving forward! Marketing is a social game today. Have you already made the transition to data driven marketing, is it something you’re looking into, or is it a complete waste of your time and resources? How do you attract your Twitter attention? Quality content or other ploys? What are your thoughts on Facebook engagement? Which of these methods do you use? Are there additional methods that people need to know about?