Key components of B2B inbound marketing are promoting your message and building relationships through social media. In our “Twitter for B2B Marketing Results” webinar, Trey Pennington defines marketing as, the ongoing process of engagement whereby strangers are nurtured into advocates. Social media engagement is an excellent forum for engaging other like-minded professionals. Using blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, a B2B marketer can boost the company brands exposure to not only prospects, but to advocates. These advocates, actual customers or not, can help share positive messages about your product or service and these actions help drive visitors to your website–inbound marketing in action. Consistent effort throughout the day, everyday can enhance relationship building.

7 tips to help create advocates and build relationships in the social web:

Be honest, be yourself.
Be active, accessible and responsive.
Be considerate, acknowledge others.
Listen to others.
Persistently seek out new connections.
Dont just talk about yourself or your company.
Know your connections and adjust your conversations.

To build relationships, maintain a B2B inbound marketing state of mind throughout the day:

10 minutes in the morning:

Create: Start or respond to conversations on Twitter around your industry.

Share: Retweet interesting tweets; dont forget to add your commentary or opinion.

10 minutes around lunchtime:

Connect: Search for people in your target audience on LinkedIn and request introductions from your connections.

30-45 minutes in the afternoon/evening:

Create: Start or finish a blog post that offers tips, help or expert opinion.

Build: Join a tweet chat in your industry.

Inbound marketing for B2B is not a one-step, “set-it and forget-it” process. Building relationships that help build your business takes consistent and persistent effort.

Do you have a B2B inbound marketing state of mind? Please share how you fit social media engagement throughout your workday.