In a couple of week’s time it is National Nutrition Week, with the theme of “Try for 5”, where dietitians and nutrition professionals all over Australia will be encouraging people to eat more fruit and vegetables.
This got me thinking…what if nutrition professionals themselves acted on this advice to help ensure the digital health of their brands and businesses? Perhaps if we all agreed to “Try for 5” social media conversations each week, we could start to shape the nature of these conversations, or at the very least have a stronger voice amongst the online communities.
A couple of week’s ago I attended the Problogger Event in Gold Coast, where the theme was all about more action and less procrastination. So in the spirit of good nutrition for our bodies as well as our online brands, I encourage all nutrition professionals to try these 5 new(ish) social media tools and techniques that you may have been avoiding.
Video streaming, especially through Facebook Live, is an incredible opportunity to showcase your knowledge and increase your fan, follower and customer bases.
Since video is super-strong right now and Facebook Live seems to get higher organic reach than other types of content, it’s definitely worth adding Live to your social media content marketing plan. In addition, Facebook prioritises and promotes Live video, so a great incentive to get your content seen in your target audience’s newsfeed.
Your community LOVE this type of video engagement as it is real time. No-one cares if you drop your phone or if you are filming in your house with the dirty dishes in the background. You really can’t go wrong so if you have a Facebook brand page, no more excuses not to at least try out Live.
I have seen some great dietitian and nutritionist Facebook pages, but only a handful are using this feature.
If you want to see some examples of your colleagues who are using this amazing Facebook feature, have a look at Thinking Nutrition and Jemma O’Hanlon.
2. SnapChat
If you are still scratching your head wondering what on earth Snapchat really is and how you even use it, I hate to say it but you are showing your age! More people now use Snapchat on a daily basis than Twitter, but even more impressive is that it took Snapchat just 4 years to get the same audience size as it did Twitter in 10 years!
Image by Ryan Nagelman
The psychology of Snapchat is at the core what makes Snapchat stand out over other social channels. The fact that posted content disappears within 24 hours forces users to keep coming back, which creates a stickiness factor that cannot be matched elsewhere.
Snapchat’s unique user interface and features don’t place emphasis on followers or vanity metrics. Instead, Snapchat is about storytelling and engaging your audience in the most compelling manner possible. Telling your brand’s story 10 seconds at a time can be a challenge, but this, increasingly, is where marketing is headed; micro-content for micro-moments. Consumers, especially Millennials, value their time and want to be engaged in the quickest manner, which makes Snapchat the “Twitter meets YouTube” of social media.
If you are still not convinced or reluctant to take on yet another social media platform, get in contact with Tyson Tripcony at Correct Nutrition. Tyson has created the Snapchat profile @dietitianlife and is inviting all dietitians in any industry to take over the account for a day and promote the great work that dietitians do. I myself have taken part in this project and it was great fun sharing 10 second videos of my day and how I practice and preach my nutrition beliefs.
3. LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn is hardly a new platform and whilst most nutrition professionals will have created a profile, I am constantly amazed by the number of profiles that are completely neglected. If you were applying for a job, you wouldn’t send in your cv that had not been updated in a few years or a cover letter without your most up to date information. Take 5 minutes as part of your “Try for 5” and make sure that your LinkedIn profile has the following (as an absolute minimum!):
- A professional head shot or profile photo. No-one likes seeing the automatic silhouette headshot, unless of course you are an alien with two noses!
- Search engine optimise your profile. This will help you to get found by people searching Linkedin for key words with which you want to be associated.
- Provide detailed contact information. Ideally your email, telephone number, blog or business website. If someone wants to get hold of you, make it easy.
- Customise your public profile url. So it should look something like this: https://au.linkedin.com/in/terilichtenstein
- Optimise the anchor text for your blog / website links on your profile. You can customize the anchor text in your url’s by selecting the “other” option. Use a keyword-rich title.
It is great to see a few dietitians and nutrition brands extending the leverage with their Instagram accounts through the use of the fairly new Instagram story feature. Stories creates a place for content that’s not “good enough” for the Instagram feed, or at least is too silly to fit in amongst the art. Because everything disappears, you don’t have to be ashamed of that awkward face or stupid joke forever the way things posted to your real Instagram profile reflect on you forever. I really like stories as it gives brands more freedom and poetic license to have real conversations.
Before Stories, most brands only featured the highlights of their life, whereas with Stories, it allows you to post the everyday “off the cuff” content similar to Snapchat. But because Instagram Stories appear at the top of the old feed, your followers will inevitably see them without you needing to build a new audience in a different app.
So if you haven’t already viewed some stories of your favourite Iggers, take a look and then give it a go yourself!
5. Slack
I was introduced to the wonderful world of Slack a couple of years ago when I worked at ntegrity digital agency. Slack is a real time team messaging app that will make your communication between team members (from 2 people up to 20,000 people) so much more efficient and effective. When I started using Slack, my first thought was “I can finally get rid of email” (although that may have been too optimistic). Slack can improve team productivity by a third, mainly by reducing internal email and meetings. But there is so much more that this wonderful (and free) tool offers, but be wary…it can become almost as addictive as email!
So there you have it. My take on “Try for 5” as part of National Nutrition Week.
Hopefully together with our intake of 5 fruits and vegetables, as well as our 5 new social media activities, we can help generate ideas and engage in meaningful conversations to help improve the health of many nations.