This week’s top conversational marketing stories:

Three Ways to Dominate the Marketing Automation Industry – on Customer Experience Matrix

“I wrote last August that it’s still possible for new B2B marketing automation vendors to challenge the industry leaders. This was based on the observation that several of the smaller vendors have quickly reached the 1,000 client benchmark. But it didn’t answer the more interesting question of what it would take for a new vendor to really bypass the current leaders. That particular question came up repeatedly during Dreamforce last week. The answer may not matter to marketers who don’t themselves work for a marketing automation vendor. But I think it’s worth pondering anyway, if only as an interesting case study in business strategy.” This post snagged 134 social likes and covers the topic of dominating the marketing automation industry. What tips did you snag from this post?

Instagram Surpasses Twitter in Daily Mobile Traffic - on MarketingProfs

Over 1332 people agreed that this post was worth a read. “Instagram August figure is a nearly tenfold increase from six months earlier—from 886,000 average daily visitors in March 2012. Twitter's mobile traffic also increased over the six-month period, but at a much slower rate. Moreover, Instagram users spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, on average, whereas Twitter users spent 170 minutes visiting the site via mobile over the same period, comScore found. Even so, Twitter attracted roughly 29 million unique users in the US via mobile device in August, compared with nearly 22 million for Instagram (comScore measured use across iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices that accessed both sites via native application as well as via mobile Web browser). This transition in which Instagram overtook Twitter occurred in July and has only continued to grow in August. Twitter has been adopted by marketers for quite some time, but how many of you are enmeshed in Instagram?

The Impact of Better Design - by John Jantsch on Ducttapemarketing    

This Jon Jantsch post, which garnered over 132 social likes, focuses on not only the impact of better design but takes an ample amount of time to explain exactly what ‘having a better design’ is. “But, what is better design? For some that term might simply mean better visual appeal, more pleasing to the eye or stylish. To me it means better communication. The primary thing I have to offer is information and better design allows me to communicate that information more effectively and more profitably. I’m not suggesting that aesthetics of better design aren’t important, but of equal importance to me is hierarchy of information, white space and information way finding that is delivered with the right fonts, spacing and appropriate use of size and color.” The article reports that traffic was up 22% over a 6-month period after the redesign of their website. Are you happy with the design of your website you think it’s time to switch things up a bit?

Let's keep the conversation moving forward! Is marketing automation total domination on your to do list?  How attached are you to Twitter? Have you dipped your toes in the Instagram pool yet or is it about time? And how happy are you with the look and feel of you website. Is it time to redesign?