LinkedIn Secrets for RDs: Build Your Brand, Network, and Career with Stacey Dunn-Emke, MS RDN
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Libby: [00:00:00] If you're looking to grow your business as a registered dietitian, you've come to the right place. If you're not sure what to do or what steps to take next so that you can create flexibility and freedom in your life, then you're gonna learn a lot from tuning into our podcast here at Dietitian Boss.
I'm Libby Rothchild, the founder of Dietitian Boss, a fellow registered dietitian and business owner, and in our podcast, I share. The highs and the lows, and I talk all about how to grow your business, get it started, and I interview our clients. To date, we've had over 200 interviews from clients who share their journey on our podcast, Dietitian Boss.
Hello and welcome today I'm here with Stacy Dunn, M-S-R-D-N. She's a registered dietitian and the founding owner of Nutrition Jobs, a career portal for dietitians and nutrition professionals and dietitian salaries.com, an anonymous salary survey tool. She's the author of the Dietetic Resume Guide and specializes in boosting professional opportunities for dietitian [00:01:00] students and interns with jobs coaching, and courses on creating a modern winning resume for dietitians.
Stacy regularly hosts LinkedIn live events. Spotlighting dietitian, careers and modern employment opportunities, aiming to build confidence and knowledge. She brings her vast work experience to the dietetic career coaching table where she has worked as a clinical dietitian, nutrition writer, outpatient dietitian, clinical nutrition manager, and research dietitian with Dean Ornish.
She has appeared in the Oprah Winfrey Show and M-S-N-B-C tv. She's frequently a speaker, including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The California Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Harvard Medical School. She has served on the board of the Bay Area Dietetic Association, including President-Elect and was rewarded dietitian, outstanding dietitian of the year, and recognized young dietitian. She lives with her family in San Francisco. Welcome to today's episode.
Welcome, Stacy. So excited to have you back on air and talk about your specialty [00:02:00] LinkedIn, along with secrets for dietitians to build your brand, network and career. Happy to have you today. Before we get started, I was just wondering, what do dietitians get wrong about LinkedIn? Are they using it enough and how can they use it more effectively?
Stacey: Hi Libby. Thank you so much for having me on. Again, I love all the work that you're doing. Thank you. And I'm super excited to talk about LinkedIn and opportunities for dietitians. I think the main thing that dietitians have been getting wrong about LinkedIn is thinking it's not a really cool platform that it's for the over 30 or over 40 crowd and that it's not really a place for opportunity. It's a place for job seeking and I'm not looking for a job, so like why would I be over on LinkedIn, they also think that maybe it's a place where there's a lot of sales happening over on LinkedIn and they don't wanna be a part of that.
I think those are old fashioned ideas. I'll tell you that in the last couple years, [00:03:00] dietitians have been really showing up so amazingly coming up with their own interesting content that has really been exploding. So I think the dietitians need to. Change their perception of what LinkedIn is and get out there and get on it.
Libby: Love it. In today's episode that you are gonna give some action packed tips for how they can do that. And I do agree with you. Those are a lot of the myths and misconceptions when it comes to LinkedIn. I, myself not a big power user of LinkedIn, so I'm excited to hear.
You have to say, I've known for years that this is your field of expertise in terms of LinkedIn. Would you be able to, for context, the listeners might be thinking, okay, Stacy, I hear you LinkedIn. I know, but they need to have a success story of a dietitian maybe who's leveraged LinkedIn to land a job or grow their business.
Do you have any examples to add more context?
Stacey: I would've had an answer for this that was totally different. Just a couple years ago, I would've said, oh yeah, there was this one dietitian that I worked with and she found a job [00:04:00] by doing this, and that. And honestly, in the case, there's dietitians are exploding.
On LinkedIn. And so I don't have like just one particular story. What I do have are stories of dietitians, myself included, that are finding that people are reaching out to them. Just like earlier before this, someone asked if I could also be on their podcast related to LinkedIn messaging me.
So another dietitian, like just being able to show up and. Beyond there, there are so many dietitians have that have been able to show that they are able to get more clients, whether it's for their private practice or for their speaking engagements. I work a lot with Toni Toledo, and she does a ton of work in the public speaking arena.
She runs a leadership group for San Jose State students and dietetic students. She has gotten so many opportunities on LinkedIn talking about just how to show up being a public speaker. So I think if you get out there, put [00:05:00] on LinkedIn, what it is that you wanna be found for, the opportunity will be coming back to you.
Libby: Yeah, that's fantastic. And so of those case studies you mentioned, can you share one or two things that dietitians might be doing? Are they posting on the platform? Are they just updating their skills like you've mentioned in the last episode? What are they doing that makes 'em stand out?
Stacey: There's a few things that anybody could do, and some of these dietitians are doing a really fantastic job at it. Number one is their name on their LinkedIn profile. You'll notice like I have my credentials after my name. So MS RDN or if someone is a personal trainer, they might have that certification or a certified lactation consultant.
Diabetes consultant that you have that certification. Right up there on your name, that demonstrates your expertise, that demonstrates your authority in a particular area, that you're not just interested or that you're a hobbyist in the area of nutrition. So I think that's a really key element.
And then also your headline. It's that little bio, the mini [00:06:00] bio, 200 characters just below your name, and you want that to be sprinkled with keywords. You want people to find you because some of the platforms LinkedIn is a search agent. Like you can show up in search results based on your keyword.
So if you are working with, I'll use the example again of PCOS, that if you're working with those types of patients and you wanna attract people, whether it's. Referrals from physicians or other healthcare professionals, or the actual patients themselves. You've gotta put PCOS in your headline and say, I help people with PCOS or I help women with PCOS, like the state right there, what it is that you do, and make that really obvious on your headline. So you've got your name with the credentials, your headline, and then I think. Not just being a scroller on LinkedIn. I think that's easy to do. But if you are an active participant, you're a content creator, it doesn't need to be a whole lot of stuff.
In fact, it can be some of the same stuff that [00:07:00] you're using on other platforms. Maybe you really like. TikTok or you really like Instagram? I know I personally love Instagram, and so I just take some of the content that I'm thinking about over on Instagram and we'll post it maybe a little bit differently using a scheduler.
I can use the scheduler that's within LinkedIn, or I can use one that's separate. I like to use later, so you can tailor each of the posts, but it's pretty much the same content. It just gets worded a little bit differently. Maybe fewer hashtags in an actual post, but I do think that's important is engaging with also other people.
So not just creating your own content and posting, but also engaging with other dietitians, other healthcare professionals. Recruiters companies, if you wanna work for a company, like for example, if you wanna work for like Barilla Pasta company or something that get onto their website, get onto their, on their company page on LinkedIn and see who's there that you might know, maybe there's other dietitians that are working there.
Maybe [00:08:00] you can connect with them or if they're going to an upcoming conference, you can comment on something that they're doing that you resonate with, that you are wanting to connect with. So there are just some of the things you can do. Obviously there's a lot of ways that you can spend time on LinkedIn.
I will recommend, I know I have better success being more professional on LinkedIn and spending my time in a way that's gonna have a return on my investment of time by using the desktop version versus using my phone. Okay. Because on my phone I just scroll. I don't type as much. I don't put a lot of thought into what I'm saying.
'cause it's not like Instagram in that way. And it's not like TikTok in that way where you can go girl. Like whatever it might be that you have to have a little more thought to it. So just spending a few minutes. Actually sitting at your desktop computer and having your engagement there or your post creations there.
Libby: Yeah, really helpful and I fully agree about repurposing that content, making the most outta one piece. I have seen you with some [00:09:00] shorts showing your face. Are you also putting those on YouTube also? Stacy? Is that what I've seen? Whole video. I
Stacey: make it in Instagram. I download it before I add the music and then I put that over on other platforms. I make a YouTube short out of it. I will make a post on LinkedIn. I have two different places where you're gonna see me on LinkedIn. One is my personal profile, and then one is my company page. Okay. Which I highly recommend a company page for anybody, whether you are full-time, part-time.
Whatever, whatever your work is. If you're working maybe full-time in a traditional job and maybe just part-time in a side hustle working maybe you're seeing, patients remotely, whatever it might be that can have its own company page. Everything that you do, everything that you own can be your own company page.
And so I'll put it maybe both or one place. I will do that through, I can upload that then to later. And put in the description that I want and then put that into whatever that platform [00:10:00] is. I use ManyChat over on Instagram, uhhuh, so I just take out some of that. Don't comment on, whatever it might be to get something in their inbox.
Libby: Yeah. What a maximizer. I love how you're taking one piece of content. I say that and I think it's helpful. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, you can always just take one piece of content in two different platforms. You don't have to start with multiple different platforms, but it's such a great way to improve your output and really make use of your time.
So that was a great way to share some inspiration for our listeners. I do wanna shift to personal branding because we know it's so important to stand out. In addition to the elements you've discussed about optimizing your headline, making sure you've got your credentials and using LinkedIn on the desktop versus on your phone.
Unlike TikTok and platforms that are so consumable on your phone, you really wanna be in your desktop for LinkedIn, as what I've gathered so far. When it comes to personal branding on LinkedIn for dietitians, what are some actionable tips to build authority that you've seen are effective?
Stacey: Thank you for asking this because I love to see dietitians show up [00:11:00] on LinkedIn as the expert in an area or multiple different areas.
Maybe you'd like to do public speaking and you'd like to do nutrition writing for companies. So just being able to show up there, and again, that goes back to. What is it that you're trying to show up for? Obviously I wouldn't be trying to show up for one-on-one nutrition counseling, even though I still know a lot about nutrition and how to do that, but that's not how I'm gonna show up.
In fact, it's funny, one of the ways you can show up is through recommendations. This comes up I'll ask somebody for a recommendation on my LinkedIn profile, which is like this fantastic testimonial and I did it recently and someone. I gave back a testimonial or a recommendation about my expertise in gut nutrition and I said, oh no.
Yeah, thank you so much. But that's not what my brand is that yeah, that's not what I want to be known for. That's not how I wanna be searched for and found. Thinking about your keyword first. Then that can come back over to your headline, making sure that your brand is [00:12:00] consistent there, that you're showing up that way.
Also, your about section, that's a little section that when someone goes to your profile, they can then see what it is that you do. They can see what it is. That you offer. And this can come, like if you have a website, the content that you have on your website to bring people into your services, to attract people, that same sort of idea can go back over onto your about section.
You don't need to go into all the weeds about where you went to school or all your certifications or you know that you were a copier class kind of. No one really cares about that. You can include that, but have that towards. The bottom part of your about section, I think you get 2000 characters. So you can put a lot of information in there, but start off just like you would with copy that is magnetic, that draws people in.
So talk about what it is that you do and how you can solve a problem, how you can. Eliminate a pain point. I know you like to talk about this as well, but talk about what services [00:13:00] that you provide. I think anybody could do this, whether you have a traditional job or if you have a non-traditional job or unconventional job, that how you can be of service in addition to your traditional work that you can give workshops, that you can talk to students, that you can work with preceptors.
To tell them about how to insert an NG tube, for example. There's just a lot you and you can go maybe give a talk to somebody about that. You're not going to be the one actually doing the certification for that but you can talk about how that's an opportunity for dietitians. So putting that in your about section I think is really helpful. And then part of your brand is that you have to be the voice of what your expertise is, which is all that you're, when we talk about having a brand, that's really what it is, right? That is showing to people that you have an expertise in a certain area.
That you can be counted on, that you're solid, that you're just knowledgeable about something and you can help solve this particular problem. So then that goes into the content that you create. [00:14:00] So I do recommend that you do try to create a good cadence with your content on LinkedIn.
So I do a lot over on my company page and I'm migrating over and doing a lot more on my personal page. I've had a. LinkedIn presence forever, like literally since LinkedIn was in existence, so for a long time. So I, my relationship has evolved with it over the years as well.
And I have found that just in the last four weeks that I've been posting more on my personal profile, the opportunities have just been. Off the charts, like it's coming like talks and workshops and presentations and help me with this and help me with that. So there's just a lot of opportunity that's there.
So that said, like, how many times should you post, I think at least three times a week and don't feel intimidated by that, right? Go back to your scheduler and go back to your content scheduler like later, for example. think about how you can use that or if you're over on Pinterest [00:15:00] using tailwinds, you can also, I think you can also post over to LinkedIn.
There's a lot of different ways to do it, but you can schedule it natively, right on LinkedIn and I've been doing that, so I come up with an idea. Let's say you've got a theme for the week and everyone works differently in their business, but I think what really helps a lot is having a theme for the week.
Then based on that theme that you have posts for the week, or if you don't wanna have one theme per week, you based on that, maybe it's a blog post that you have and you create a whole bunch of social media posts based on that, maybe five to 10. You just ask AI to do that for you and your own voice and find how you want it to look, and then schedule those out.
You don't have to do it in all one sitting. I listened to. A marketing person once say that they schedule. A LinkedIn session to post every single day from nine to 10:00 AM five days a week. And I thought, [00:16:00] oh, that's really interesting. I've never done that before. And that's a really, that's just a simple idea, right?
It's oh, that's a fantastic idea. You don't have to spend a whole hour doing that. But I think the idea is the intentionality. It's just exercise, right? When you tell ourselves family members, your clients to exercise a certain number of minutes a week. I think it's easier to create a habit when you do it all the time.
So five days a week or seven if you want to, but five days a week there's gonna be a day or two that you're gonna miss in there, of course. And but don't worry about that because you're gonna post again tomorrow, but you don't have to think about oh shoot, it's Wednesday. I was supposed to post, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and now it's, oh I'm going outta town on Friday and it's gonna be a whole week before I do it again.
So I kinda like the idea of getting your brand out there. You've got plenty of content. I always worry that I'm never gonna have enough content, and that is scarcity mindset, right? There's, it's ridiculous how much content we have, so don't let that be a limiting factor. Just think about what's your system for getting it out there.
Libby: That's fantastic. [00:17:00] Strategic advice, Stacy, and sharing your past and experiences. Super helpful. And for anyone who's not connected with or following Stacy on LinkedIn, definitely you should. 'cause she role models all of what she's talking about and I think that's really helpful. The strategy is there and I will say that.
That's what we're doing. We've blocked out time to record this podcast episode, and that's what I do when I interview guests. And that's no different than blocking out time to intentionally plan for social media. And so that's how you take it seriously, right? Whether you plan it and you don't have an appointment with somebody else, or you make an appointment with yourself that's part of that business mindset and strategy that can really help you stand out in your brand.
Stacy, many, our dietitians hesitate to post. You've given all these great strategies, but maybe they've optimized their profile. They're like, okay. I'll add my credentials. I'll optimize my about, I'll have the first thing on the 2000 characters be about pain points and services so that you'll scroll down and read the rest about my how long I've been a dietitian for.
So they're [00:18:00] listening to you about prioritization in order, but they're still not. Wanting to post regularly, whether it be albeit the mindset or they just don't know the frequency and engagement, what do you say to those dietitians?
Stacey: Oh, there's so much opportunity over on LinkedIn. You can, if you want some ideas.
Sometimes I think I never have an original idea and I just get inspired by others, and that's what triggers my own original idea is that look at what other dietitians are doing. Maybe somebody in your space, maybe somebody who's not in your space at all, but. Love to go on LinkedIn every single day.
Take a look at maybe some of the stuff that I do or other dietitians that you know, that you respect who do a really good job with that. So just to get some ideas. But think about all that you can provide. There are a lot of different content recipes out there. I don't mean the recipe for a bologna sauce.
I'm talking about like a formula. So there's the idea that you have you educate in one, you. Sell in another and you provide a update with news or a trend or a report on an article and [00:19:00] then repeat those three. Or, maybe sale is like one of every five posts or whatever you want to do, or you want someone to opt into one of your lead magnets.
So I think of it that way. I think about. Having someone go back to, so I will write a post and talk about something that will lead back to traffic over, onto my website or so that could be a blog post. I am always trying to promote the jobs that are on my website, so for someone else that might be promoting a recipe, an actual recipe for that bologna sauce to get traffic onto their site.
It could be a lead magnet to get their three day meal plan. It could be listening to their podcast. That should be if you have a podcast or you have some sort of YouTube channel or some, other way to, that's not on your actual website. That should be in your rotation at least twice a week, right?
So you've got a YouTube channel. You should be promoting two videos a week if you've got a, I'm just making up this number, but that it could, a volume, a set, [00:20:00] a formula for what it is that you're providing. If you are following any trends in nutrition, like keyword trends, cooking trends, that's an obvious one.
I think dietitians often feel afraid to post recipes on actual recipes on LinkedIn because. It's seen as a, more fancy platform and that, we're not gonna talk about actual recipes, but you can certainly do that. People wanna see a recipe video. They would totally love that. Where you're talking about it, the B-roll ones where you're like making the food and I don't do this, so I'm not so good at it, but making the food and then talking about it, yeah.
There's so many different ways, you might already have this too, Libby, a content calendar creator where you have five or seven days worth of content and it follows a certain formula, so again, going back to people want to be educated but also think about having a always a call to action.
I know Holly Larson always reminds me of [00:21:00] this, every post needs to have a call to action. LinkedIn doesn't necessarily want you to leave the site, but that call to. Action could just be comment down below what do you think? Keto diet, yes or no? And comment down below and my gosh, it'll just I just looked I had this post on keto diets as opportunities for dietitians, and I just looked again last night.
I posted a couple days ago and the comments were off the charts that had, they weren't asking me, they were talking to each other, right? This community of people who were talking to each other. There's a lot that you can put in there. You can have the call to action going back to your lead magnet, or it can go back to any other posts that you want to promote or to just to contact you.
Just to find you. Do you wanna work one-on-one with me? Do you wanna be part of my group? Do you wanna be part of my membership? This is, oh, testimonials. That's always a really good one. You and I have talked about using LinkedIn for recommendations as testimonials in the past. You can certainly do that, but you can bring that testimonial right back up into your post.
You [00:22:00] can also create articles based on any topic that you want to that could be on. There's posts which show up in people's feed. Show up or not show up in someone's feed. An article is a static thing that stays that you can then feature or not feature on your page so that when someone does look at your profile and people look at your profile all the time, people wanna see all the juicy bits about you.
So those articles are static. They stay there, they're easily found once they're on someone's profile. I wouldn't say they're so easily found when someone's searching for a search term. But that is a great way to have static information, evergreen information that talks about how someone can work with you.
The other thing you can do that I'm a huge evangelist for is the newsletter that LinkedIn provides. So I've got my own newsletter that's hosted over on MailChimp that has, like 14,000 subscribers. And then I also have. A newsletter on LinkedIn that is mostly the [00:23:00] same content that has about seven or 8,000 subscribers, and I didn't do a whole lot to make that happen.
I think I've created it now. It's been in existence for about a year or maybe year and a half, and I get a ton of engagement from that. But LinkedIn does all the back work for you. You post this newsletter that then can go into someone's inbox, their actual email. Inbox if you've opted in for that, or it'll just show up in their feed as something that they need to check out.
And then that, again, stays static. So I don't put on like conferences or things that are time sensitive into that newsletter. But there's a topic about, dietitian opportunities using the keto diet or keto forward diet. And that just gets a lot of traction. It gets. Sure. Eyes back over my website.
And so those are some ways that dietitians can show up in content that they can post.
Libby: Really helpful tips and thank you for sharing that. Very inspiring. So as we [00:24:00] wrap up today, I wanted to ask for somebody who only has 10 minutes a day. To spend on LinkedIn.
You've given so many great ideas here. What would be the most valuable focus for that duration of time? Just 10 minutes a day.
Stacey: All right, let me think. If we had like a minute for each one of these activities, let me just think about eight or 10 different activities. Number one, check your notifications.
Go right in and go right up to your top now bar and check your notifications. Okay. Make sure you're not missing something major, number two, check your connections. Has somebody connected with you and you haven't responded? Do that. That takes less than a minute.
While you're in there, connect with somebody else and you can send a note or not send a note. I will always say, if you're a dietitian send me a connection. You don't need to send me a note unless you wanna do something together. But also don't send a note that says, Hey, I can't wait to get to know you more.
And do you wanna join my membership? So don't do any sales in that for, there's tons of people that will talk about that. But so while you're in there. Check your [00:25:00] connections and make one or two connections while you're in there. So you're active and LinkedIn sees that, right?
It's like LinkedIn's watching your activity in there too. Sure. The other thing I would do is maybe comment, go through your feed and comment on other people's activities and always want to offer something original. Again, it's not like. TikTok or Instagram or even p you don't content on comment on Pinterest necessarily, but you don't want to say little cheerleading things necessarily on a LinkedIn post.
Yay, awesome. You go, I will do that. But I try to be more, just add another sentence in. Oh, I learned so much about how, butter doesn't have to be part of the keto diet. Thank you so much for sharing that. Just a tiny bit more. Ideas in there again, thinking of it as more of a professional platform.
So I will comment on other people's stuff and then I will go over and check on my posts that I have posted in the past. I will go to my, if you go to the me on the top nav bar and you [00:26:00] scroll down just before your company page, you'll see something I think it says. A page posts or something like that.
And you can see all your analytics. You can go in there and see what was performing well. Was there a comment that I missed that also notifications, there were so many, I just missed in there. Just looking at there and what, whatever. You can look at your trends, you can see what's going on.
That takes a minute or two. Then you wanna create some content. So having done all those activities that will get your mind going and thinking about what you wanna post if you don't have something prepared already. And let that go. You can also post a poll in their P-O-P-O-L-L and ask people what they're thinking about or what they're interested in.
I think, did I miss anybody? That's really it. You remember actually LinkedIn is all about networking. So that's the whole reason you're over there. You are over there to get some business for your business, but you are over there to connect with people because people make the business right.
I [00:27:00] always make sure that I am talking to people, I am responding to messages. It may not always happen super fast, but that I have to remind myself that is what LinkedIn is all about. It's a social network for professionals.
Libby: Yeah, so that's why, just to go full circle, that's why you don't wanna. S send someone a message about joining your membership in the first message.
Because remember, network before sales. I think that there's this mindset that, oh, I don't, I'm only ready to do it if I wanna sell. And then you forget to network. So it really, the platform is about making connections the same way you would. Network in person and build those relationships as you're building up your pitches, right?
So I think that's definitely a misconception when it comes to how to use the platform effectively, right? We're afraid of being too salesy, but then we don't know how to just have conversations online. But you gave us a roadmap. So you told us exactly how in 10 minutes a day and what to specifically do.
So that was really great. Any final, thank you so much Stacy. So much action packed strategy and inspiration in today's episode with [00:28:00] some real takeaways. Any final thoughts or words you wanna leave us with as we wrap up?
Stacey: Again, just think about all the opportunities that are out there as dietitians and make sure that people know what it is that you are an expert in.
That, whether it's just general nutrition or some sort of specialty using your keyword, that keyword's gonna show up on LinkedIn in your headline, your about, in maybe some of your posts, your articles, your featured articles, your newsletter, whatever it might be. And there's just. There's so much opportunity.
It's such an exciting time to be a dietitian. There's a lot of people that you can look to for ideas, for advice for networking, but just get out there and enjoy our profession.
Libby: Love it. Yeah. Great way to wrap us up. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Libby.
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