In 2012, a KitchenAid employee posted a disrespectful tweet about the president’s family from the iconic cookware brand’s official Twitter account during the first of three presidential debates. Retribution was swift in the form of complaints and criticism from KitchenAid’s community of more than 25,000 Twitter followers. To her credit, KitchenAid’s brand manager quickly followed up with an apology for the offensive tweet: “Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion,” the company said in a follow-up tweet, after which it posted the following message on its Facebook page: “Hello, everyone. My name is Cynthia Soledad, and I am the head of the KitchenAid brand. I would like to personally apologize to President Barack Obama, his family and everyone on Twitter for the offensive tweet sent earlier. It was carelessly sent in error by a member of our Twitter team who, needless to say, won’t be tweeting for us anymore. That said, I take full responsibility for my team. Thank you for hearing me out.”

The episode illustrates perfectly what you shouldn’t do (offend your audience) and what you should do: Act swiftly and sincerely to correct mistakes when you make them.

“When you put something offensive out there on social media, you can’t take it back,” says Amber Pankonin, MS, RD, CSP, LMNT, of Lincoln, Neb., an active social media user and founder of StirList, a website that allows users to search for, create and share recipe “playlists.” “But you can admit to it, apologize and respond.”

Common Social Media Missteps

There are as many ways to abuse social media as there are to use it. Along with political rants, social media faux pas include:

• Spreading incorrect or outdated information
• Using offensive language
• Making defamatory statements about individuals or organizations
• Being argumentative
• Badmouthing a client or employer
• Complaining excessively
• Failing to cite information sources
• Using incorrect spelling, punctuation or grammar
• Bragging excessively
• Selling or promoting instead of informing and engaging
• Ignoring comments from friends and followers, and
• Being perpetually negative.

The 5 A’s of Atonement

1. Admit. When you make a social media misstep, admit it, advises Sue Reninger, managing partner at RMD Advertising, a Columbus, Ohio-based firm that specializes in social media strategy for food industry clients. “If you [make a mistake and] say nothing, people are going to draw the conclusion that you’re hiding, that you’re uneducated or that you simply don’t care, all three of which can be damaging to your personal brand.” The sooner you admit the error, the better. “In the social space, [people] expect an immediate response,” Reninger adds.
2. Acknowledge. It’s important to acknowledge that mistakes can impact others and to empathize with those who may have been affected. For example, KitchenAid’s brand manager directed her apology not only to the general public, but specifically to the Obama family.
3. Apologize. “I’m sorry,” goes a long way, according to Reninger. “If you’ve made a mistake, apologize for misspeaking and apologize for how it must have offended someone. Be short, be very human and be very direct.”
   Adele Cerhs, president of Epic PR Group, an Alexandria, Va.-based public relations firm that specializes in crisis communications, recommends no-caveat apologies: I’m sorry not I’m sorry, but … “You’re simply acknowledging them by saying, ‘I’m sorry you had a negative experience. I’d love to discuss this with you offline,’” says Cerhs. “You’re closing the loop on a customer service issue, and you have to do it publicly.”
4. Act. Correcting mistakes is just as important as apologizing for them. “If you make a mistake, that mistake is living and breathing on social networks for a really long time — especially if you don’t address it correctly” says Cerhs. Corrective action could range from eliminating an offensive post to promising to double-check science before making recommendations.
5. Accept and move on. The final and most important step, according to Pankonin, is moving on. “You have to forgive yourself,” she says. “Start producing valuable content again in order to rebuild trust. We’ve seen it plenty of times with celebrities: They goof up, they apologize, people forgive them and we all move on.”

LinkedIn is a 21st-century White Pages that lists not only members’ names, but also their jobs, education and skills. Essentially, your LinkedIn profile is a virtual resume that you can share with colleagues and contacts. Using it, you can:

• Find new job opportunities
• Discover new clients and customers
• Market your products and services
• Establish yourself as a thought leader
• Solicit information, opinions and advice
• Recruit employees and vendors
• Conduct background checks on companies and individuals
• Research potential employers, employees, partners and competitors
• Get free publicity from bloggers and journalists

Using LinkedIn

The more time you spend on LinkedIn, the more valuable it will be. Getting started, however, takes only four steps and a few minutes:

1. Create your LinkedIn profile.

Using LinkedIn is free and starts with creating a profile. To do so, visit LinkedIn.com and click “Join Today.” Upon opening an account, you’ll be guided through a series of steps to create your LinkedIn profile. Because it will improve your visibility and maximize your opportunities, the goal is to have a profile that is 100 percent complete. By LinkedIn’s standards, that means your profile should include:

• A photo: LinkedIn is all business, so choose a professional photo.
• Past jobs: List your current position and past jobs you’ve held — 100 percent complete profiles have at least two — along with descriptions of your roles. Doing so allows you to highlight your past experience and connect to former colleagues.
• Your skills: LinkedIn will suggest skills you might have based on your job and experience; complete profiles include five or more skills.
• A summary: Write a summary about yourself — a cover letter, of sorts — describing who you are and what you have to offer. Think of it as the LinkedIn equivalent of an elevator pitch.
• Your industry and location: Filling out your industry and postal code will put your profile in relevant search results for recruiters, journalists and others seeking someone of your expertise and experience.
• Your education: Listing your degrees and alma maters will help you build your network.
• Recommendations: Complete LinkedIn profiles include at least three recommendations. Once you build your network, you can solicit recommendations from former employers, peers and clients.

2. Develop your network.

LinkedIn profiles aren’t public. To see them, you must be connected to users, either directly or indirectly through a mutual contact. To create these key connections, you can import contacts from your email account, search for people you know or view a list of potential colleagues and classmates that LinkedIn generates using your profile. When you find someone you want to link to, click “Connect” to send a request.

3. Leverage your links.

Successful LinkedIn users actively use the networks they create by:

• Posting and answering questions using LinkedIn Answers, which allows you to query your connections — or the entire LinkedIn community — for advice about professional conundrums;
• Joining LinkedIn Groups to make new connections and contribute to professional discussions;
• Exchanging recommendations with colleagues, clients and contacts;
• Using the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile?” feature to meet new people;
• Searching for partners, employees, vendors and service providers based on connections’ recommendations;
• Using the “Jobs” function to search for or advertise open positions;
• Performing a “People Search” or sending an “InMail” (LinkedIn’s internal message system) to get introductions to people you want to know; and
• Using the “Advanced Search” feature to locate individuals with a certain job title, skill set, background or location.

Spending a few minutes to create a profile, build a network and contribute to the community will keep the door to new opportunities always ajar.

Underutilized, however, it could result in missed opportunities. If you’ve taken the first step toward creating a profile, you may be wondering, “Now what?” To make sure LinkedIn is helping and not hurting your career, follow these best practices for optimizing your profile, your network and your presence.

Paint a Picture

Your LinkedIn profile is one of your best opportunities for introducing yourself to the professional community and is often the first impression you’ll leave on a potential client or employer. It’s up to you to make sure you’re portrayed in a professional light, from the photo you select down to the experience and skills you include.

Start with a photo you’re proud of. While a corporate headshot isn’t required, photos should be more professional than personal. Avoid photos that include pets, goofy expressions, inappropriate clothing or loud backgrounds. By default, your most recent job title is your LinkedIn headline. Consider changing it into a personal branding statement that reflects who you are and what you have to offer. A good profile also has a compelling summary statement — a brief cover letter, of sorts — describing who you are and what you have to offer. Think of it as the LinkedIn equivalent of an elevator pitch.

It’s important your profile reads like a resume, not a memoir. Just like a good resume, your work experience is best presented in bulleted form so recruiters, prospects and other contacts can quickly search, scan and scroll their way through it. The LinkedIn feature “endorsements” allows your connections to endorse you for the skills you’ve listed in your profile.

Therefore, be sure to include a comprehensive list of skills for which you want to be known. The more complete your profile, the better.

Get Noticed

Equally important as having a complete profile is making it easily available to those who want to view it. With that in mind, you should increase your profile’s visibility by making it public, which maximizes your exposure by allowing it to appear in search engine results. You also can make your LinkedIn profile easier to find and share by claiming your vanity URL. For the best results, choose your name (or a variation of it) as a stronger alternative to the web address LinkedIn automatically assigns for your page.

Utilizing keywords is another way to make sure your profile gets in front of the eyes you want to see it. Pepper your summary and job descriptions with keywords you want to be associated with. If you specialize in celiac disease, for instance, make sure your profile includes terms like “wheat,” “gluten-free” and “food allergies” so your profile will show up when people search LinkedIn for those terms.

Connect with Purpose

LinkedIn is all about networking, but you shouldn’t invite just anyone to connect. While you may be able to get away with tastefully adding people you’d like to network with online, LinkedIn recommends only adding people you actually know, and will ask you to indicate your relationship with that person when sending an invitation. To link up with second-degree connections, you can use the “Get Introduced” feature, which requests an introduction from the connection you have in common.

In addition, although LinkedIn provides a template message for inviting a contact to connect, you’ll get better results if you customize your request with a personalized message that politely explains who you are and why you want to connect (e.g., to stay in touch after meeting them at a conference). Joining LinkedIn Groups — for people who work in the same profession, who went to the same school and who have the same interests — allows you to chat with members, exchange resources and view their profiles, even if you’re not connected to them. For example, the Academy has its own group, which members are encouraged to join.

Have a Presence

It’s not enough to just create a profile. Spend some time each week working on your online presence by building a network and contributing to the community, which will keep the door to new opportunities always ajar. Don’t be afraid to share links to work you’ve published or articles explaining industry trends on your feed or in groups. Exchanging recommendations with colleagues, clients and contacts is another way to provide value as a LinkedIn connection.

With the right network, you’ll be able to search for partners, employees, vendors and service providers based on connections’ recommendations. You can even advertise a job opening — or look for a new job for yourself — with the robust “Jobs” function that allows users to drill down on openings based on job type, industry, salary and location, and see who in their network is connected to the company or job poster.

Ultimately, participation and reciprocation are the keys to successfully using LinkedIn: Those who are most active get the most out of it. Likewise, those who give their contacts recommendations, advice and introductions are most likely to receive the same in return.

Finding Apps

You don’t buy apps at brick-and-mortar retail stores. Instead, you buy them online in an “app store” that’s accessed through your mobile device. When you purchase an app it’s downloaded directly to your phone or tablet. Here’s how to find the app store on your device:

• Apple devices: You can download apps for your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch in the Apple App Store using either your device or your computer. On your computer, download iTunes from Apple’s website, install and open it. Once you’ve launched the software, click “iTunes Store” and then choose “App Store” from the menu at the top of the screen. You also can access the App Store directly from your device; simply find the “App Store” button on your home screen, then tap it.
• Android devices: Apps for Android devices are available via the Google Play Store. On your mobile device, simply locate and tap the “Play Store” button. On your computer, visit play.google.com/store.
• BlackBerry devices: BlackBerry’s app store is called BlackBerry World. Find the appropriate button on your device, or visit appworld.blackberry.com/webstore on your computer.
• Microsoft devices: Apps for Windows devices are sold in the Windows Phone Store, accessible via the apps button on your device; the “Store” tile on your PC, if you’re using Windows 8; or at windowsphone.com/store.

Choosing Apps

There are thousands of apps available. A good strategy for finding the cream of the crop is browsing the list of “top free” and “top paid” apps in the app categories that most interest you, whether business, games, health or travel. Online reviews — whether in the app description itself or in magazines — can also offer helpful insight before you buy.

Once you’ve found an app that interests you, use these tips to decide whether it’s worth downloading:

• All app stores include user ratings and reviews. Low ratings are a sign that the app may not work properly or fully deliver its promised service.
• Look at the date of the app’s last update. If it hasn’t been updated in many months, the app has been abandoned by the developer and may be outdated, have technical bugs or lack customer support.
• The best apps typically include clear summaries and screenshots selling the app’s top features; apps that lack these typically are of poor quality.
• Make sure the app description includes who the developer is and a link to the developer’s website with contact information, such as an email address. If the developer isn’t listed or its website lacks contact information, the app might not be trustworthy.
• If you’re concerned about privacy, make sure you read the app’s “permissions,” which disclose what personal information (e.g., your phone and email contacts, call logs, Internet data, calendar data, location data, etc.) the app will access and for what reason. Each app store treats permissions differently. Google Play, for instance, has a “permissions” tab on every download page. Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t list permissions in its app store; instead, it requires developers to provide permissions when users first launch the app, allowing users to “accept” or “reject” them. Only install apps that access information you’re comfortable sharing.

Buying Apps

While many apps are free, most cost between $0.99 and $4.99. A few cost more. Whatever the app’s price tag, in order to purchase it you’ll need an app store account. When you click “buy” to purchase your first app, you’ll be prompted to sign in. Apple users who already have an iTunes account should sign in using that account (likewise for Android users who have a Google Checkout account, Windows users who have a Microsoft account and BlackBerry users who have a BlackBerry ID). If you don’t have an account, you can create one from inside the app store by following the step-by-step instructions. Once you have an account set up with a saved credit card, you will be automatically charged whenever you purchase an app.

Installing Apps

If you’re downloading an app directly to your device, it will be installed automatically. If you’re downloading an app to your laptop or desktop computer, you’ll need to transfer the app to your phone or tablet using the USB cable that came with your mobile device. In most cases, the phone or tablet will automatically “sync” with your computer once the two are connected.

Using Apps

Most apps don’t come with instructions since, unlike computer software, apps typically are designed to be intuitive. Once you’ve found, purchased and installed the app, using it should be as simple as tapping it with your fingertip!

• Topic: LinkedIn Groups can be based on common professional interests, experience, affiliations or even goals. They can range from general to specific and could be themed around a job (e.g., Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Business Owners), subject matter expertise (e.g., Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutrition), objective (e.g., Food Trends Think Tank) or patient population (e.g., Families with Food Allergies). Keep in mind that the best groups relate to their creators’ businesses, but aren’t about it.
• Name and Description: Your group’s name and description should communicate exactly what your group is and whom it’s for. Overly creative names could cause confusion. Instead, be explanatory and use strategic keywords that will place your group in relevant search results.
• Membership: LinkedIn Groups can be open or closed. Anyone can join an open group and the group’s discussions are visible to the public. Closed groups, on the other hand, are private, which means the group owner must approve a request to join. Both groups have advantages. Open groups, for instance, grow bigger, faster, allowing you to maximize your exposure and contacts. Also, open groups’ discussions are indexed by search engines, which could help you build your personal brand. Because they’re more exclusive, on the other hand, closed groups might attract more engaged members — including high-level executives or contacts who may feel more comfortable participating in private discussions.
• Rules: Establish rules for how your group will operate. A common rule, for example, is prohibiting spam and self-promotion. Whatever your rules, craft a policy that explains who qualifies for group membership, what members can expect to get out of the group, and what behaviors will and won’t be tolerated. The goal is facilitating a community that serves members without selling to them.

Promoting Your Group
Build your LinkedIn Group by reaching out to prospective members using these techniques and tools:

• Groups Directory: Although you can keep it private, including your group in the Groups Directory will make it easy for people to find.
• Your website: LinkedIn offers badges you can post on your website, blog or even in your email newsletters to drive group traffic.
• Invitations: Instead of spamming your entire network, strategically send personalized messages to relevant individuals. Explain why you want them to join, what you think they could contribute and how you think they could benefit.
• Cross-marketing: Every time you promote yourself or your business is an opportunity to promote your group. If you do public speaking, for instance, mention your LinkedIn Group during your presentation. If you attend trade shows and meetings, put your LinkedIn Group on your business cards. Use other social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook to post about interesting discussions taking place within the group.

Engaging Your Group
Without your active participation, your LinkedIn Group will wither. Drive engagement in your group by:

• Contributing content: You should be not only facilitating group discussion, but also adding to it. Pose a weekly question to the group, start new discussion threads, share links or job leads, comment on discussions or use the LinkedIn Polls application.
• Curating membership: You can individually approve who is accepted into your group as well as what can be posted. Although it’s time consuming, this allows you to create a high-quality group. Many groups, for instance, only approve LinkedIn members who meet certain criteria, such as location or job description. Likewise, many groups maintain high-quality content by moderating discussions and removing off-topic posts.
• Featuring good discussions: You have the ability to mark discussion threads as “featured,” which pins them at the top of your group’s discussion board. This allows you to promote the most valuable group content, enhancing the group’s value.
• Sending group announcements: Using the LinkedIn Group Announcements feature, you can send up to one email announcement per week to your group members. Your weekly email could highlight active discussion threads; your personal blog, website or podcast; or webinars and events you’re hosting. Just make sure the information is relevant to your readers. The emails will come from LinkedIn — not you — so recipients and their email servers are more likely to recognize them as trusted communications.

Facebook Page vs. Facebook Profile

What’s the difference between a Facebook “page” and a Facebook “profile?” In a nutshell, a Facebook profile is personal. It’s where you post photos from your family vacation, funny anecdotes and connect with friends.

A page, on the other hand, is professional. It’s where you promote your business to current and potential clients.

Facebook does offer a number of profile privacy settings with the intention of managing professional and personal audiences, but those settings and policies change frequently.  So before you “friend” colleagues or clients, first ask yourself whether you really want to share the same information with business associates as you do with friends and family. If you don’t, a Facebook page can help you silo your networks successfully.

Creating Your Facebook Page

You must have a Facebook profile in order to have a Facebook page. If you’re not on Facebook, therefore, step one is creating your profile, which you can do by visiting Facebook.com and clicking “Sign Up” (Facebook will walk you through the process). Once you have a profile, you can create a page by following these steps:

1. Visit Facebook’s “Create a Page” tool, where you can choose one of six page types. RDs who do business under a company name should choose “Company, Organization or Institution” while those who operate under their own name should choose “Artist, Band or Public Figure.”
2. When you choose a page type, select the appropriate option from the “Category” dropdown menu. RDs creating a “Company, Organization or Institution” page, for instance, might choose “Food/Beverage,” while those creating an “Artist, Band or Public Figure” page might choose “Business Person.”
3. Click “Get Started” and follow the instructions to create your page.
4. Personalize your page, starting with photos. You’ll need a personal photo and a cover photo: the personal photo should be your logo or a professional headshot, and the cover photo ideally represents your line of work. Also important is the “About” section where you describe who you are, what you do and what services you offer. Include your email, phone number and a link to your website or blog so potential clients can get in touch.
5. Now you’re ready to add page content. You can post photos, videos, links or text. Because this is a business page, however, keep it professional. RDs and RDNs, for example, can post nutrition tips and advice, links to articles about diet and exercise, recipes they’ve developed or information about products they recommend. (Remember that there are rules and ethics about paid endorsements! Read more about that here.)

Promoting Your Facebook Page

Once you’ve created a professional Facebook page, your goal is getting people to “like” it. When someone “likes” your page, they may see your updates in their news feeds. And the fact that they “liked” your page may show up in their friends’ news feeds. Share the link via other social media sites — for instance, share with your Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections.

Other ideas for publicizing your page:

• Add “Like Us on Facebook” to your business card and email signature.
• Add a Facebook “Page Badge” to your website and/or blog.
• Try paid advertising to reach Facebook users who are interested in food and nutrition.

Using Your Facebook Page

Like any social media channel, a successful Facebook page requires fresh content. Consider the following tips for maintaining your professional page:

• Post something to your page every day to keep it in followers’ news feeds. It could be a link, a photo or even a question for your followers to answer.
• Keep your most important posts at the top of your Facebook page by “pinning” them. To pin a post, click the pencil icon beside the post and select “Pin to Top.” This will move the post to the top of your page and mark it with an orange flag. Posts can stay pinned for up to seven days.
• Whenever possible, include a photo in your posts. According to Facebook, a photo album or picture generates twice the engagement as other post types.
• Use Facebook Insights to find out when people engage most with your posts —morning, noon or night — then try to make posts during that time period.
• Add apps from the Facebook App Center. There are more than 500,000 apps to choose from — many of them free — that you can use to enhance your page. If you’re an author, for instance, you can add an e-commerce app that allows people to purchase your book. A polling app allows you to survey followers. Or, use a slide-sharing app to add presentations and documents to your page.

Finally, if someone posts on your page or comments on your content, respond. Being a good Facebook citizen means not just posting to your page, but also interacting with your followers.

“Transparency is an important guideline to keep in mind for everything that is done online,” says Tiffany Gallicano, PhD, assistant professor of public relations at the University of Oregon. “Hiding relationships is shady, and the truth eventually emerges.”

The story serves as a cautionary tale to anyone who publicly recommends products or services: Before you publish, post, tweet or like, familiarize yourself with the rules of engagement.

The Truth About Testimonials

“The No. 1 topic that people talk about and share on social media channels is restaurants,” according to Paul Rand, immediate past president of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and founder and CEO of Zócalo Group, a Chicago-based marketing firm. “No. 2 is food. So, where and how people talk about food—and how people should share and talk about it through online channels—is really, really important.”

It’s so important, in fact, that the FTC decided in 2009 to revise its endorsements and testimonials guidelines to extend longstanding government recommendations about “truth in advertising” in traditional media like television, radio and print to digital and social media. As a result, registered dietitians who are compensated in exchange for reviewing or endorsing products online are now subject to the laws governing truthful advertising.

Joy R. Butler, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and author of The Cyber Citizen’s Guide Through the Legal Jungle: Internet Law for Your Professional Online Presence (Sashay Communications 2010), elaborates: “The FTC is particularly concerned by people who receive compensation for posting online reviews, recommendations and endorsements. The FTC reasons that the typical consumer might not realize the new media reviewer received compensation in exchange for the review. Since consumers are inclined to place more confidence in reviews written by completely independent people than in reviews written by people who have received compensation, the FTC wants the reviewer to disclose any compensation.”

According to the FTC, compensation can mean not only money, but coupons, samples, gifts and anything else of value. Failure to disclose compensation could result in hefty fines, and although the FTC has promised to pursue action only against advertisers, not endorsers, reviewers should take the government guidelines very seriously.

“Failure to adhere to the guidelines can prompt the FTC to review your online activity and initiate an action against you if it determines your failure to follow the guidelines has resulted in a business practice that deceives or misleads consumers,” Butler says.

“If an RD doesn’t disclose and it becomes discovered, they immediately lose credibility— and that can be incredibly damaging to the RD’s reputation,” Rand adds. “If, on the other hand, they clearly and accurately disclose, it actually may end up enhancing their reputations that they were thought of well enough by these brands to be a paid consultant for them.”

Posting Pros and Cons

RDs shouldn’t let FTC guidelines discourage them from being active online endorsers, according to Rand, who says ethical Internet marketing relationships offer RDs the opportunity to earn extra income, promote and learn about products they believe in, and even enhance their professional reputations.

Dallas-based nutrition communications consultant Neva Cochran, MS, RD, LD, who regularly posts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn on behalf of her corporate clients, says the opportunity to enhance her visibility as a science-based expert is a major draw. “I want to be honest and accurate, and someone who is seen as a reliable source of nutrition information,” Cochran says. “It’s an opportunity for me to get out positive messages about nutrition, and that’s what I do as an RD.”

But not everyone agrees. “The only reason there’s a special outreach to people in this position is exactly the reason [RDs] shouldn’t do it,” says Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization whose mission is segregating commercialization from culture, education and government. “What’s a great idea for marketers is a terrible idea for health professionals. They’re being asked to trade in their trusted relationships for a commercial purpose. If you think a product is great and you’re touting it because you’ve come to that conclusion on your own, that’s one thing. But if you’re being compensated for doing it, I think that undermines and transgresses the relationship of trust with clients and patients.”

Digital Dos and Don’ts

Whether one engages in paid relationships with marketers is up to the individual. How one should engage, however, isn’t always clear. “It’s a moving target as far as what people consider appropriate and not appropriate, and what is a best practice,” says Cochran, whose clients have given her different—and sometimes conflicting—recommendations about social media disclosures.

The best way to ensure you’re complying with current federal guidelines and best practices is by making sure you work only with credible clients, keeping in mind that product publicity and marketing often are handled by public relations firms—and not all PR playbooks follow the rules.  “Being an educated and informed person in this area means you know what your [clients’] obligations are and can determine if they’re going to meet them,” explains Rand, who says the best way to evaluate a client’s credibility is to know the rules and ask appropriate questions to establish that your clients know them, too.

Remember: It’s a publicity firm’s job to promote a client’s brand; it’s your job to protect your brand. “It would be a good idea for experts to establish a personal pitch policy that outlines what they’re willing to review and the fact that offering compensation or free products does not guarantee a positive review,” Gallicano says. “This can help professionals keep their credibility intact.”

While the line between “ethical” and “questionable” isn’t always clear, RDs can avoid crossing it by keeping the following top of mind:

Transparency: Always say who you are—never blog or post anonymously—and where you got your information. “When giving reviews, RDs should consider providing information about what they are basing their opinions on,” Gallicano says. “If there are unknowns about a product’s safety or significant limitations of supporting studies, this information should be noted.”

Disclosure: FTC guidelines recommend disclosures in every relevant post, wherever you post it—and a single disclosure on your homepage or bio is not sufficient. “If your blog consists of [paid] reviews or if you receive complimentary products, include a brief disclosure sentence on each post as well as a more detailed disclosure on a separate web page,” says Butler. “In contrast, if you do paid endorsements only occasionally, it may be sufficient to provide a brief disclosure on the relevant post. On platforms where every character counts, the community often develops its own language. For example, on Twitter, #ad and #spon indicate the person has been paid to tweet.”

Integrity: “It’s not surprising that brand marketers want to recruit RDs to spread positive word of mouth online,” Gallicano says. “Brand marketers need to be told, however, that payment and free products or services do not guarantee a positive review. Your reputation is not for sale. The payment is for your time taken to review the product, not the outcome of the review.”

If ever in doubt, Cochran recommends consulting the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Code of Ethics, which states: The dietetics practitioner does not engage in false or misleading practices or communications. “Many Academy members think the Ethics Committee is primarily for reporting dietetics practitioners for unethical behavior,” says Cochran, who worked with the Committee to resolve a social media quandary. “I go to the Ethics Committee when I have ethical questions. That’s what they’re there for.”