One of the most common assumptions among marketers and other communicators is that social media is best aligned with business-to-consumer efforts and that business-to-business cannot take advantage of social channels as effectively. In fact, in many ways, social media is far better employed in the B-to-B space.

In this episode of FIR Live, Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman, co-authors of the new book, Social Marketing to the Business Customer, answer questions about the role of social media in B-to-B marketing.

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About our Conversation Partners

Paul Gillin is a writer, speaker and consultant who specializes in business-to-business uses of social media marketing. His four books include The New Influencers (2007), Secrets of Social Media Marketing (2008), The Joy of Geocaching (co-authored with wife Dana in 2010) and Social Marketing to the Business Customer (co-authored with Eric Schwartzman, 2011). Previously, he was editor-in-chief of the newsweekly Computerworld and founding editor of Internet publisher TechTarget. His website is gillin.com and he blogs at paulgillin.com. He’s @pgillin on Twitter.

Eric Schwartzman has been conducting monthly social media training programs for PRSA since 2006 and works as an independent online communications consultant to businesses, the US Military, government agencies and nonprofits. Eric specializes in online communications strategy, social media policy development and accelerating social media literacy within organizations. He is a frequenter speaker at professional conferences and has been producing the award-winning podcast On the Record Online (which is @ontherecord on Twitter), which focuses on how technology is changing the way organizations communicate, since April 2005. Eric is on Twitter at @ericschwartzman.

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(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)