Social Media and Your Business

Social media is, well, everywhere.  For those of us over 30 (ok, me) who felt like we pretty much knew what was going on with the Internet, the meteoric rise of social media came kind of out of left field.  (Why is my 21 year old babysitter teaching me about My Space?)  It was kind of embarrassing.  But once you get over the initial suspicion that it’s just a lot of hype, you start to see what, concretely, it can do for your business and career.  (Not to mention the ability to keep up w/ legions of friends on FB who are all out doing really exciting things as you sit at home watching Project Runway while your kids sleep.  Actually that’s the downside of social media.)

Anyway, there are a million articles every day about how to harness social media for your business, but here’s a really good primer on specific tools that can help small business owners like you:  http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/the-world/article/the-5-social-media-tools-small-businesses-need-right-now-amber-macarthur.

And for all you RDs out there wondering how to use social media (notice I didn’t say ‘if’) for your business, Skelly Publishing just launched a new CPE program on social media and the RD.  It was written by Jenny Westerkamp and RD who, for those of you who don’t know, launched All Access Internships with Katie Hamm (a dietetic intern), primarily marketed via Facebook.  It’s also filled with tips and ideas from other RDs who have used social media successfully.  It’s a great read that’ll leave you with lots of new ideas and tools to start using social media to your advantage!

Mindful Eating: Right for your Practice?

The other day I attended my first program on Mindful Eating.  It was wonderful.  Rarely do I see approaches to combating obesity and helping people truly enjoy their food that I feel are so unique and groundbreaking.  Mindful Eating–as conceived by The Center for Mindful Eating (www.tcme.org)–is one such approach.  Skelly Publishing is always looking for new ways to help RDs break out of the same-old and be more effective, and when I learned of Mindful Eating, I immediately wanted to learn more.

I met Megrette Fletcher a few months ago when she helped us out with a continuing education program we were working on.  She’s an RD, a Buddhist and a founder of The Center for Mindful Eating.   She draws on her unique background to offer teleconferences and supervision groups for RDs, and is offering a teleconference on Feb 2nd at 1 PM EST called ‘Capturing in Words, the Essence of Mindful Eating.’  You can attend for free simply by joining TCME–for a mere $20 a year (it’s a great deal, trust me.)  In addition, Skelly Publishing will be offering Mindful Eating webinars with Megrette come March/April timeframe.  We’re really excited about them, and, if you work with diabetes or weight loss clients, we think they’ll immediately change your practice forever–and for the better.