The purpose of this directed project was to develop a nutrition professional’s guide to social media messaging for young adults. Specifically, the guide teaches how to define a target audience, identify that audience’s educational and communication needs, and how to translate those needs into effective social media content. A tool to brainstorm a social media content plan allows the user to apply the concepts covered. The guide concludes with a list of external resources for topics that are outside of the scope of the guide. Though this guide focuses on young adult audiences, it can be modified for other populations.

A group of six registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) who use social media as part of their professional life reviewed the guide and provided critical insight and recommendations for revisions. Overall, they agreed that the guide is well-organized, useful, and of good quality.