FIR B2B

Hosted by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman, FIR B2B covers the latest news in B2B communications, interview practitioners at innovative companies, and present weekly ideas and tips for making the most of online and in-person conversations. Paul is a speaker, writer and B2B content marketing strategist who specializes in social media. Eric is a veteran PR practitioner currently focused on social media compliance. Eric and Paul are the co-authors of the 2011 book, "Social Marketing to the Business Customer";

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

FIR B2B #27: Josh Bernoff on Getting the BS Out of Business Communications

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

Twitter stock took a hit as the company announced disappointing earnings and continues to struggle with increasing member activity. Could Twitter become acquisition bait or, even worse, the walking dead? It’s looking like a distinct possibility if this company doesn’t refocus its efforts on creating a great user experience. It’s too beholden to Wall Street right now.

Special Guest: Josh Bernoff

Josh Bernoff is well known to the community of social media aficionados as co-author of the best-selling book Groundswell and a highly visible Forrester Research analyst for many years. Last year he left Forrester and struck out on his own, setting up a website called Without Bullshit that attacks jargon, corporate doublespeak and vacuous communications. Having read more than 10,000 press releases during his career, he has no shortage of material and he appears to have hit a nerve. A recent post about 10 writing trips and the psychology behind them logged more than 100,000 page views in a little more than three days. Josh believes the companies that succeed will be those that are honest, forthright, original and personal in the way they communicate.

Josh is working on a book about how to write without BS. It’s a topic he’s passionate about, and that comes through in this interview.

Follow Josh on Twitter.

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About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 05/13 at 09:54 AM
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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

FIR B2B #26: How SAP Makes Brand Advocacy Work Across Multiple Cultures

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

Fair use is an essential tool for journalists, enabling them to draw upon copyrighted material in the name of the public’s right to know. But who decides what constitutes fair use in a medium that spans the globe? It turns out that many platform providers are designating themselves as judge, jury and executioner. If you’ve ever had a video removed from YouTube because it included a clip from a popular song, you’ll be interested in how the story plays out. Facebook’s plan to host content from major media outlets may bring the issue of content ownership to the fore.

Sprinklr is acquiring Get Satisfaction, demonstrating how important customer reviews have become to both social media listening and promotion. Get Satisfaction has signed up a blue-chip base of customers that use its embedded review service not only to gather feedback but to drive sales from peer recommendations. Interestingly, companies that host reviews on their own commerce sites tend to generate better feedback than those that don’t.

Have you tried Meerkat or Periscope yet? Many marketers are beginning to tinker with the new tools of live streaming, and we expect to soon see an explosion of innovative content as a result. Here’s a tutorial to get you started.

Special Guest: Sarah Goodall, Head of Social Business, EMEA, SAP

Employee brand advocacy programs are difficult enough to implement when your people all speak the same language and live in the same country, but what do you do when you program spans dozens of borders, languages and cultures? That’s the task that special guest Sarah Goodall of SAP tackles in her role as Head of Social Business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Sarah’s experience will be of interest to any communications professional who works with a multicultural audience. You’ll be particularly interested to hear her observations on the characteristics of specific cultures, from the outgoing social networkers in Italy to the intensely private Scandinavians.

Follow Sarah on Twitter.

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About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 04/22 at 11:56 AM
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Monday, April 06, 2015

FIR B2B #25: How Yamaha Harmonizes a Diverse Customer and Channel Community

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

New McKinsey research makes the case that B2B purchasing decisions are not only growing increasingly complex but also evolving to resemble B2C buyer journeys. “Many more influencers and decision makers are now involved in the purchasing process, and business buyers too have been shaped by their consumer shopping experience,” McKinsey researchers Oskar Lingqvist, Candace Lun Plotkin, and Jennifer Stanley write. “Just as the digital revolution has transformed once-predictable consumer purchasing paths into a more circular pattern of touch points, so too business-to-business selling has become less linear.”

That means the pressure is on B2B companies to understand the buyer journey better, and the only way to do that is by speaking to buyers. Unfortunately, many sales reps still jealously guard access to their customers, inhibiting the flow of information that can make all sales and marketing professionals more productive.

Government agencies are loosening the reins on their scientists and increasingly allowing them to speak freely about their research, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. However, improvements are inconsistent, with agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention getting strong reviews for openness, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration scraping the bottom of the barrel. Still, the improvements are an encouraging trend both for science and for vigorous scientific discussion.

Special Guest: Jeff Hawley, Director, Customer Experience Group, Yamaha Corp. of America

Although Yamaha is a household name in music circles, its sales and marketing strategy has until recently been strictly B2B. Like many big Japanese electronics firms, Yamaha makes a huge variety of products, with a particular focus on musical instruments and sound engineering technology. The company’s social media strategy needs to enable product groups to speak to customers in their own distinct language without losing the benefits of brand consistency. Yamaha also needs to communicate directly with consumers while being mindful of the needs of its B2B channel.

The company has recently been consolidating and unifying its Facebook presence in response to research that indicates that customers have a strongly positive association with the Yamaha brand regardless of the products they use. It’s dipping its toe into direct-to-consumer marketing for the first time. Jeff Hawley explains how customer insights are guiding his group’s thinking as it builds a consistent social media identity.

Follow Jeff on Twitter.

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About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 04/06 at 03:07 PM
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Monday, March 23, 2015

FIR B2B #24: Naomi Oreskes on How Merchants of Doubt Undermine Good Science

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

The gender discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins points out the need for workplaces to find ways for recognize people who aren’t naturally vocal and aggressive. The ability to shout shouldn’t be a requirement for advancement. Paul, who is an introvert, is particularly sensitive to this issue and thinks companies are squandering talent when they don’t listen to the people who don’t talk very much.

A new study by Google says 46% of potential buyers researching B2B products today are millennials, up from 27% in 2012. That makes them the biggest generational group researching these products. These buyers use mobile devices extensively and favor online video, which means B2B companies need to get on the stick and enable their websites and content for the channels millennials use.

A report from Dun & Bradstreet NetProspex based on an analysis of 223 million records finds that more then 71% have gaps and inaccuracies. This seems surprising at a time when so much information is available about business professionals and the companies they work for. Eric asks if anyone knows of a service that overlays data from multiple sources into comprehensive and accurate profiles of buyers.

Special Guest: Naomi Oreskes

Despite the fact that 97% of climate scientists agree that human activity is having a significant impact on climate change, only 50% of the general public holds the same view. This disconnect between scientific consensus and public opinion is nothing new. Businesses that oppose policy changes that threaten their interests have long used paid experts, faux public policy foundations and outright lies to create doubt in the minds of the public going back to the 1950s.

Numerous examples of these practices are exhaustively documented and analyzed in Merchants of Doubt, the 2010 book by Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes and CalTech science historian Erik Conway. The book shows how a small number of politically conservative but academically respected scientists have been involved in campaigns to cast doubt on everything from the dangers of tobacco to evidence of an ozone hole to the debate over climate change, and how media organizations give disproportionate attention to minority views in the interest of stirring up controversy.

A documentary based on Merchants of Doubt is now in staged release and will be widely available this summer. Eric saw it and calls it the most important documentary he’s ever seen. Paul listened to the 13-hour audiobook and calls it "life-changing." Naomi Oreskes joins us to discuss how commercial interests use doubt to block change and how to know when science is being manipulated in this way.

Follow Naomi Oreskes on Twitter.

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About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

FIR B2B is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications,serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 03/23 at 07:31 AM
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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

FIR B2B #23: John Sculley On Why Successful Businesses Need to Think Different

FIR B2BIn this episode:

News & Trends

Eric shares the results of his recently completed study on Internet and social media use in South American and Latin America. Some highlights: Latin American Internet users are more engaged on social media than US users. Five of the 10 countries with the most hours spent on social networks per month are in Latin America. The most popular social networking brand in Latin America is Facebook, which hosts 21 million more Latin American profiles than US profiles. Argentina is the world’s most engaged global population on Twitter and Brazil is the world’s second most engaged population on Facebook. The research also looks into what topics people discuss in Latin America and even the languages they prefer to use for each topic. The research isn’t published, so we unfortunately can’t give you a link, but contact Eric if you’d like to learn more.

Forbes has been pushing the envelope on native advertising, but Paul believes it pushed too far with its March issue, which features a sponsored package from Fidelity on the cover without any clear labeling. When asked to comment by Advertising Age, Forbes’ chief revenue officer said the placement was appropriate because the package features “strong content.” Paul has been a big fan of Forbes Media’s Chief Product Officer Lewis DVorkin and his innovative experiments with native advertising, but he believes this latest experiment strayed over the line into deception. And why is the head of sales speaking for the value of content to the reader?

Eric is working with the US Department of State on a digital climate change communications strategy. He’s looking to pitch strategic partnerships to folks at iPhone, Facebook, Twitter and Hootsuite, so if you want to save our planet, tweet him at @ericschwartzman if you can make a personal intro..

Special Guest: John Sculley

Most people know John Sculley  as the CEO of Apple Computer from 1983 to 1993, a tumultuous time that featured the exile of founder Steve Jobs. Although Sculley was associated with the failed Newton PDA and was ultimately fired from Apple,  he also grew the company’s revenues tenfold and introduced concepts in the Newton that are standard features on smart phones today.

Sculley has had a storied and successful career. As the youngest-ever CEO of Pepsi, he oversaw the enormously successful Pepsi Generation and Pepsi Challenge campaigns. Since leaving Apple he has been involved in the launch and operations of  many companies in industries ranging from consumer goods to healthcare.

In his new book, Moonshot!: Game-Changing Strategies to Build Billion-Dollar Businesses, he writes about the dramatic technology changes that have put customers in control and changed the competitive landscape, requiring successful companies to continually probe and test the market for new opportunities. In our interview, Sculley talks about his experiences at Apple and what he’s learned about how breakthrough companies think differently.

Get this Podcast:

About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

FIR B2B is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications,serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 02/24 at 08:56 AM
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Monday, February 09, 2015

FIR B2B #22: Why B2B Communicators Should Care About Freedom on the Net

FIR B2B
In this episode:

News & Trends

Twitter beat the street on earnings, but subscriber growth is slowing and some people are calling for radical steps to ramp up activity. Did Twitter’s focus on maximizing revenue cause it to lose touch with the unique experience it once gave members? Can current management restore some of Twitter’s early magic? Wired says twitter may becoming the Bing of social media – a capable product whose virtues are only appreciated by a technology-savvy elite.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is going gangbusters thanks to a clear mission and a willingness to forsake short-term revenue opportunities to maintain trust with its members. The company should be praised for its willingness to forego short-term revenue opportunities in order to keep its eye on long-term growth.

The excellent Buffer Blog analyzes the factors that took the company from 0 to 275,000 Twitter followers in four years. Early outreach to influencers and a commitment to make Twitter a key communication channel with users are a couple of highlights. Buffer’s commitment to transparency even extends to publishing the salaries and stock options of all its employees and the status of its fundraising efforts. The company even has an internal practice of sharing all emails publicly. Not many companies would be comfortable with that level of transparency, but it certainly sets Buffer apart from the pack.

Reputation.com’s Michael Fertik makes a persuasive case why reputation is now more important than money. “I am less afraid of big brother than I am of little brothers, meaning companies that have all this data,” he writes in his new book. In other words, you should worry less about how government uses private information than how private companies can misuse it through practices like profiling.

Special Guest: Madeline Earp, Research Analyst at Freedom House

Freedom House says the Internet is becoming a more dangerous place to express opinions. The nonprofit has just published its annual Freedom on the Net report, which takes a look in depth at 65 countries and their progress on online freedom. The report is not very encouraging. It finds that privacy and free expression are increasingly under assault by governments, even in some well-developed economies. Research Analyst Madeline Earp explains why businesses should care about online freedom and how it may impact their ability to do business overseas.

Madeline Earp (@MadelineEarp) researches Internet freedom throughout Asia for Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net program. She is fluent in Chinese and an expert on restrictions facing new and traditional media in China. She previously worked at the Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights in China. She has published considerable research on Chinese press freedom issues. A fluent Mandarin speaker, she received a master’s degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in English literature from Cambridge University.


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About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

FIR B2B is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications,serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 02/09 at 04:59 AM
FIR B2B • (1) Comments • Permalink

Friday, January 16, 2015

FIR B2B #21: Behind Backbone Media’s Ambitious Predictions Project

FIR B2B

 

In this episode:

News & Trends

The Charlie Hebdo tragedy in Paris illustrated the terrible consequences of free speech. The New York Times’ David Brooks pointed out that the satirical newspaper that rallied the French people in the wake of the shootings could never be published on American university campuses because its content is politically incorrect. Are there lessons to be learned by businesses as well? InCorporate guidelines on what employees can and can’t say are full of political correctness that may unintentionally suppress the honesty that makes our organizations better.

MarketingProfs offers some best practices for employee advocacy programs. Advocacy is the low-hanging fruit of word-of-mouth marketing, yet many companies don’t have formal programs in place or under-support the ones they do. This may be the year that advocacy finally gets the attention it deserves.

Special Guest: Paul Salvaggio, Backbone Media

Content marketing firm Backbone Media put together an ambitious collection of 100 digital marketing predictions from 25 thought leaders at the end of last year. The team had to crack the problem of minimizing the time commitment it asked of the participants while maximizing the value and exposure of what they said. The result was multimedia-rich collage that combine video, audio, text and even PowerPoint with abundant sharing options.

Backbone’s Operations VP Paul Salvaggio takes us behind the scenes to explain how the project was managed and the unique value the company realized. In addition to generating positive buzz for Backbone and the thought leaders interviewed, the company created a template that clients are already asking to use in their own projects.

Follow Paul on Twitter at @paulsalvaggio.


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About Your Hosts

Paul GillinPaul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

Send Paul an email or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations communicate and the way people use media and information.

Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

Eric’s expertise is in digital strategy, digital governance, content marketing, database marketing, user experience design, employee advocacy, education technology, digital multimedia production, B2B lead generation, search engine optimization and social media engagement techniques. He’s also the best-selling co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer.

FIR Community on Google+Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at fircomments@gmail.com. If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all podcasts in the FIR Podcast Network, subscribe to the “everything” RSS feed. To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

FIR B2B is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications,serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Posted by Paul Gillin on 01/16 at 01:08 PM
FIR B2B • (1) Comments • Permalink

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