Building Your Online Presence

Building an online social media community takes time. But the payoff is priceless. Having an online presence can elevate your nutrition business and brand.

My journey in nutrition and social media started in graduate school, when fellow dietitian-to-be, Wendy Lopez, MS, RD, and I decided to create a healthy cooking and nutrition series on Brooklyn Public Access Television (BCAT). Creating a local television show was fun, but we soon realized there was a limit to the amount of people we could reach with our message. We discovered that if we transitioned our show to an online platform (YouTube), our reach would be worldwide. Flash forward five years and our brand has grown beyond our wildest dreams.

Here are three tips for using social media to build your nutrition business:

You need a niche

As black dietitians, we noticed that there wasn’t a huge online presence geared directly toward nutrition for our community. Tailoring our message to the black community was one of the best things we could have done for our business. Social media helped us connect (and build) our followers – mainly because our target audience was specific. What is your niche?

Content is king

Seriously. This is maybe the most important thing you can do to grow your social media presence. If you are creating original nutritional content and recipes (with high quality photos), always post them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. People share great content! This will ultimately help to grow your social media presence, as shares = more followers.

Cultivate a voice

The most successful people on social media are good at being themselves. Figure out your voice / tone / brand and make sure that anything you post falls in line. Some of the most popular Instagram accounts post pictures that all have a similar color scheme and filter, so that people recognize the brand instantly when it appears in their feed. Consider working with a graphic designer to help you create a “look book” for your online presence. Pinterest is great for inspiration, too.

Jessica Jones, MS, RD

NE Member