By Bob Hebeisen

Some of the smartest marketers on the planet hail from right here in New England.

Top stories below from Melissa Miller from Hubspot, Jaime Reynolds from MITX, Ann Handley from MarketingProfs, and Bob Hebeisen.

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• 20 Fresh Stats About the State of Inbound Marketing in 2012
  Hubspot blog, Melissa Miller
  Spoiler alert: Hubspot’s research shows leads generated from “inbound marketing” are better.  But all kidding aside, if you are trying to justify your investment in blogging, social media, and SEO, then these are some great stats to show to the higher-ups that need to be converted.  Follow the link for a Slideshare you can download for using the charts in your own presentation, and you can register for a webinar presentation of the data on Thursday March 1.

• The Keys to Community Engagement: A MITX Event Recap
  MITX blog, Jaime Reynolds
  Boston Marketers ought to be engaged with their peers in a local organization, and Massachusetts Innovation and Technology eXchange is a great place to start.  Jaime Reynolds recaps their recent meeting with video interviews from some of the guest speakers. Barbara Messing (CMO for TripAdvisor) discusses how you must understand your audience in order to fine-tune your customers’ social media engagement.  Nick Ayers (Manager of Social Marketing for Intercontinental Hotels) notes that tapping into brand ambassadors is a solid strategy for building meaningful content. Looks like it was a great meeting!

• Five Ways to Find Leads from Facebook
  Entrepreneur.com, Ann Handley
  Read my blog post “Facebook Doesn’t Work For B2B, But Here Are 4 Social Media Marketing Techniques That Do” and you will see I typically argue that Facebook marketing ought to be “triaged” off the list by B2B marketers.  Your time is better spent on other social media (and other more traditional marketing tactics).  But if you’re gonna do it then these are 5 solid tips to optimize your efforts on Facebook.

• Viral Video Delivers 7X Increase in Viewership
  b2bHebeisen.com, Bob Hebeisen
  In October I created a viral video for one of my clients based on a popular internet meme and posted it on YouTube.  Checking back on it after a few months I am pleased to report that it did in fact go viral, resulting in 7 times the viewership of any other video they have posted on their YouTube channel.  See my first blog post detailing step-by-step instructions for creating a viral video using free software already included on my laptop or available for free download.  And see the results after a few months posted here.