On the 11th of March this year, we held a UK Local Circle Event in London where registered dietitian, entrepreneur and marketer Dr. Emily Foster (www.emilycfoster.com) spoke with us about using social media to be an effective leader. Local Circles aim to maintain and grow the ENLP network and to continue professional development, for example through the organisation of Local Circle events.

Social media is nowadays a very important and impactful means for companies, brands, professionals and individuals to spread their visions, products and services, engage with the general public and to network. We can use the support of social media to grow as leaders in the nutrition field. To have a big impact, you do need to foster meaningful relationships; be live and engaged, be yourself and build trust.

Here is what we learned from Emily:

  • Building meaningful relationships

In order to build meaningful relationships, for example with other nutritionists, health professionals and with your followers, it is important to think about your target audience. Once identified, you should continuously keep them in mind whilst creating your content. Using Instagram as an example, what hashtags are your audience following or usingWho can you tag in your post?

  • Be engaged!

What is engagement? Engagement includes posting, commenting, viewing, liking and sharing!  A very important aspect of engagement is being live, and Emily suggests planning a couple of times a month to be live and/or present on social media, for example on Twitter chats, Instagram TV or Live and commenting on other posts and videos. It doesn’t always have to be you who creates the content! Also, take some time to engage with other people’s content to build meaningful relationships.

  • Put yourself out there!

Be yourself, have an opinion, but, importantly, be kind!

Having an opinion is particularly tricky within our field as we, as nutritionists, researchers and healthcare professionals, are nervous about not only being judged by the public but also by our peers. But remember, your audience is following you because they want to hear from you– so don’t be afraid to have an opinion! Put yourself out there and support others, be kind and lead by example.

  • Building trust

One of the key points that came out in Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends Report 2019 was rebuilding trust. Reassuringly for us, when the public were asked who they deemed credible for information about brands, the top two responses were a technical expert and an academic expert. Although there is no clear definition of a credible expert, the findings from these trend reports are still promising for our community and provide us with the opportunity to take the lead.

So, how can we build trust?

  1. Use hashtags throughout your content to tie everything together
  2. Take part in Twitter chats to be live and demonstrate your expertise as well as to build relationships with other people
  3. Use Facebook groups as a more intimate setting so that your audience feel safe and confident to get involved and to communicate, as opposed to open Facebook pages
  4. Micro-influencers are important (not just celebrity accounts!) and you do not need a lot of followers to make an impact, you just need to build the right audience. To be a leader in the nutrition field online, engagement and building relationships is more important than followings!

“The beauty of social media is that it builds social proof”, meaning that having somebody else saying something great about you has greater impact. For example, you could make content about a research paper that you have published and generate discussions around that. This provides evidence that people are liking what you are doing and that you are having an impact.

The presentation was followed by an excellent opportunity for ENLPers to network and enjoy a Mediterranean feast at Spaghetti House!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Emily for her very informative presentation and discussions, as well as to the ENLP UK Local Circle Team for organising such a great event and bringing ENLPers together in London!

We look forward to attending future Local Circle Events and, of course, posting about these on the ENLP Blog page!

by Fiona Malcomson