Social media marketing matters. Even for B2B companies.

Social media has the potential to generate B2B leads for your business while being cost-effective. Other than a little bit of labor expense, social media marketing is virtually free.

Your B2B prospects are already sharing information online. It’s time to make that information yours.

LinkedIn used to have a reputation of housing recent college graduates begging for a job. But now, businesses have noticed it has evolved into a networking empire where leaders in all industries are engaging in world-changing conversations.

According to Software Advice's Marketing Automation Buyer Report, 85% of manufacturers cited the need to nurture leads due to a relatively long sales cycle associated with their product. 

You may believe that your inbound marketing tactics will be over at lead generation --  but, you're wrong. In order to carry out a lead during the marketing funnel process, you need to nurture it. Lead nurturing is a vital role for all inbound marketers in order to gain valuable and sustainable relationships.

Manufacturing has a long buying cycle -- which is why lead nurturing is especially essential for this industry. B2B companies should be making consistent contact with prospects at all stages of the buying cycle to receive all of the awesome benefits of lead nurturing.

What does every successful marketing strategy have in common? If you look closely, you'll find these five traits in every aspect of the campaign:

1. Pertinent
2. Profitable
3. Practical
4. Provocative
5. Plugged-in

Everything you create, post, publish, and share should follow all of these P's to make your manufacturing business strategy more successful.

If a member of your team asked you how to measure brand awareness, would you be able to tell him or her how to do it? If your answer is no, it’s OK. 

The truth is, a lot of B2B companies have little to no grasp on the effectiveness of their brand awareness strategy. Because of this, it can be difficult to acquire executive buy-in to support brand building tactics and strategies.

But, measuring brand awareness is easier than you might think! In fact, some of the strategies below can be executed as soon as you finish reading.

Before you start writing blogs, before you even start an inbound marketing campaign, you need to know who your audience is and how to talk to them. If you’re not truly speaking to them, you may as well be talking with a mouthful of crackers.

McHone Industries started out as a single-facility small-town manufacturing operation in Salamanca, NY. They struggled to fill their one facility with work. Now, they’re seeing business growth beyond their wildest dreams.

The purpose of search engine optimization (SEO) is to attract web traffic from users who bring with them an inherent interest in your brand, product, or service. However, your brand’s reach, image, and authority can also be improved by SEO efforts when done right. Understanding modern SEO is as impactful as ever on your B2B brand awareness.

You can’t just blindly do social media marketing because some guy at a business seminar told you to. Whether you’re running a Facebook business page, looking for leads on LinkedIn, or (hopefully) using multiple social platforms to spread brand awareness, you need to track what’s working -- and what’s not.

Over 79 percent of marketing teams say they were able to increase web traffic with as little as 6 hours per week of social media marketing, according to Social Media Examiner. Yet there are holdouts in manufacturing who either ignore social media altogether or don’t do it effectively. Using social platforms -- correctly -- is more important than ever to your B2B social media strategy.