Many B2B businesses struggle to build a fan base and boost engagement on social media. Once you’ve determined your social strategy and know which platforms you intend to target, there are a few tricks to getting your social efforts off the ground.

Facebook: Increase Likes through targeted boosts.
The good news is Facebook doesn’t just send your post to unqualified leads. It can optimize an ad campaign to help you find the exact members you’re looking for. If you’re in the Natural Products industry, for example, you can target a post boost so that only members who are attending ExpoWest or SupplySide see it. You set your daily limits and the time frame for the boost. Afterwards, Facebook makes it simple to see how well your boost performed and how much each “Like” cost you.

Linkedin: Utilize Company Updates and Service pages
You can now post updates that are delivered to all of your followers. Be sure to add eye-catching graphics to those updates. To leverage your Services page, create pages for different products. Each one can have a description, images, videos and more. Don’t forget to check Linkedin for insights into who’s following you. The site provides breakdowns by industry, position, location and more.

Youtube: Post short videos that address your customers biggest problems
Don’t try and create the next viral video; instead, create short videos that address the biggest problems your customer faces.
Once your video is uploaded, use YouTube’s annotation tools to turn your viewers into subscribers, and drive traffic back to your website or opt-in page.

SlideShare: Show off your content marketing chops
SlideShare is where Youtube meets PowerPoint. You can imbed your SlideShares anywhere on your website or landing pages to visually walk your customers through a process of a new product launch. And remember, SlideShares make great blog posts too.

Implement BrandHive’s 5-step strategy to social media and get results.

Extend your brand’s social media reach by implementing a visual strategy.
A visual strategy for social media channels is an important extension of your brand’s style guide. While it incorporates your brand’s existing stylistic choices—such as fonts, colors and logo usage restraints—it requires new guidelines that adapt the brand to social channels.

What matches your brand? Should you:

• Apply a unique filter to all branded images (saturation percentage, color overlay, brightness)?

• Use transparent shapes to feature text?

• Include your logo on each post?

• Scale it?

• Feature adventure photography?

• Frame content with a border within your visuals?

Don’t let your visual strategy be an after thought, or worse, give no thought to it at all. Implement BrandHive’s 5-step strategy to social media and get results.

For some thirteen millenniums, humans have domesticated me. I sting only in self-defense. I’m the only creature besides you who manufactures food for humans. I pollinate a hefty volume of the plants you consume. I have pollinate every third bite of food you eat – well, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. I’m a key player to keeping your food supplies plentiful. Without me, milk, cheese, butter and yogurt could disappear.

Who am I?

If you guessed the HONEYBEE, you are correct!

At BrandHive, we always have honeybees on the brain. These amazing little creatures pollinate 100 types of crops – from zucchini to almonds. It comes to no surprise that we like to celebrate creative ways people are helping our little friends.

For instance, local beekeepers, Nathan, Sam and Ben Huntzinger turned their interest and bee-related curriculum into a thriving business as well as a helpful tool to educate people (young and old) on everything from the threats facing bees to the proper way of extracting honey.

We’d like to congratulate our little beekeepers on their successful business and thank them for educating others on proper beekeeping.

Also, if you’re looking for great stocking stuffers or last minute gift ideas, we recommend you bypass the fruitcake and treat your loved ones to the Huntzinger kids homemade honey caramels – the Bees Brothers most popular product.

For more holiday gift ideas, visit their online store here.

To read the full article, visit Organic Connections.

To find out more about Bees Brothers, visit www.beesbros.com.

BrandHive’s strategic marketing team is expanding to accommodate the needs of its growing clientele. The branding firm, which specializes in the healthy lifestyles industry, is pleased to announce that local marketing professional, Andy Yorkin has joined the team. The new hire followed the promotion of 14-year BrandHive veteran, Gail Frankoski, to Account Director.

Yorkin comes to BrandHive after a long history with several prestigious marketing and advertising agencies, including The Summit Group, Publicis and Euro RSCG DSW Partners. His key clients were Intel, Iomega, Ragnar Relay Series and Subway Restaurants. Yorkin has also led marketing programs for brands such as Gregory Backpacks and CompHealth. He has joined the BrandHive team as Account Director.

Frankoski joined BrandHive after more than 10 years at Williams & Rockwood, a Utah-based advertising agency. There she conducted the marketing for the firm’s major brands, including Nature’s Way and Nutraceutical Corporation. Frankoski joined BrandHive in 2001 as one of eight employees. She has worked with BrandHive’s largest and most visible accounts including Epax, Kyowa Hakko, and Albion Minerals. Having participated in the rebrand from Integrated Marketing Group, and move from the office headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City, Frankoski has been part of the most significant BrandHive milestones. Frankoski has been promoted to Account Director.

With the new addition, the BrandHive agency team boasts 19 team members. For more information, please visit the hive at BrandHive.com.

When asked by Todd Runestad of Functional Ingredients about the future of wellness at 2014 Expo West in Anaheim, CA, Hilton discusses the impact of convergence.

Find out more:

SALT LAKE CITY, UT, – November 11, 2014 – Jeff Hilton, BrandHive’s co-founder and chief marketing officer, has been invited to participate in the inaugural Food Matters Live in London November 18-20. The highly anticipated event will bring together food and beverage executives, retailers, food service providers and other industry representatives worldwide to collectively address the relationship between food, health and nutrition. Hilton is confirmed to chair and present in two separate marketing tracks during the event.

Hilton’s first presentation, “Trends in Functional Food & Drink Marketing for an Ageing Population,” will focus on how to meet the unique nutritional needs of an aging population. In this session, Hilton will address consumer trends, evaluate key ingredients and nutrients, showcase innovations in product formulations and discuss the changing nutritional requirements of aging consumers. The presentation will take place on Tuesday, November 18^th at 10:30 am as part of the “Ageing- understanding the global consumer ‘super trend’” track, which will be chaired by Hilton.

Hilton’s second seminar, “Marketing Nutraceutical Brands to Millenials in the Digital Marketing Age,” will address opportunities to utilize marketing and social media strategies to meet the unique health needs of this elusive demographic. In this session, Hilton will also address how these strategies can ensure engagement among the millenial population. This session will take place on Thursday, November 20^th at 12:45 pm as part of the “Social media strategies: marketing health and nutrition in the digital age” track. Hilton will chair this track as well.

“Food Matters Live will be a tremendous global platform to address strategies and create customized solutions that offer an improved approach to health and wellness,” said Hilton.

Food Matters Live is expected to attract more than 10,000 visitors from a range of relevant professions and disciplines. For more information, please visit: http://www.foodmatterslive.com/seminars/speakers.

About Jeff Hilton

Hilton has been recognized by Advertising Age as one of America’s Top 100 Marketers and has more than 35 years of broad-based business experience, including 25 years spent within the natural health products industry with leading companies such as Nature’s Way and Nutraceutical Brands. Hilton provides a vast amount of experience and insight into consumer trends, particularly on how companies can better connect with various demographic and lifestyle segments.

About BrandHive

BrandHive is branding the natural, organic world. Like any good hive, we’re collaborative and work closely with our client partners to achieve remarkable results for natural brands. BrandHive can help you strategically position your brand within the healthy lifestyles industry. BrandHive clients benefit from our long-standing relationships and decades of experience crafting messages that engage natural businesses and consumers. We specialize in finished goods and raw materials for dietary supplements, personal care, healthy foods and healthy beverages. For more information, visit us at http://www.brandhive.com.

Looking for insight on how to create customized solutions to drive convergence between consumers, channels, categories and technology? Check out BrandHive’s Jeff Hilton’s interview with NutraIngredients-USA at SupplySide West.

Click on the link: The big opportunity over the next decade? Offering a multi-pronged approach to take consumers to a greater level of optimal health.

From guest expert at the Helm Society’s CEO Roundtable to SupplySide Rockstars, BrandHive’s Jeff Hilton will play an active role at this year’s SupplySide West.

For more information on BrandHive’s participation, check out our newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/4aZ4r.

Salt Lake City, Utah, September 22, 2014: BrandHive’s Jeff Hilton has been invited as a guest expert at the Helm Society’s meeting next month at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hilton is a widely recognized marketing strategist in the natural products industry. In his session, “Building Buzz with Jeff Hilton”, Hilton will share concepts for innovative strategies for brand awareness and customer retention.

The Helm Society is a peer advisory group that serves CEOs and industry leaders. The CEO Roundtable is part of a year-long program in which Helm Society members convene to address business challenges, build relationships with peers, and share synergies. A select group of experts is invited to each quarterly CEO Roundtable to address the “high stakes challenges” shared by group members.

Hilton brings 35 years of advanced business and marketing insights to the upcoming CEO Roundtable. He has provided high level strategic planning and branding expertise to consumer-packaged goods and value-based ingredient companies around the globe. Hilton plans to share proven concepts to help elevate a firm’s competitive advantage with a strong brand identity and strategic marketing initiatives. His session will take place October 6, 2014. For more information, please visit http://helmsociety.com/ceo-rountable-jeff-hilton/