Tag: Twitter tips

The Ultimate Guide to Using Twitter For Your Dermatology Practice

Are you interested in learning how to promote your dermatology practice on Twitter?

Compared to other social networks, Twitter is one of the simplest and most straightforward platforms you could ever use. The interface is simple and there are no privacy settings or new changes to deal with every few months.

In fact Twitter is perceived by physicians to be a more relevant platform for medical conversations than say, Facebook. Even with a limitation of 140 characters per tweet, Twitter is a great place for dermatologists to amplify your voice, accrue more influence, and extend your reach simply by leveraging this platform a few minutes each day. Here’s how to get started on Twitter.

Planning Phase

  1. Define your Goals – Decide what you are trying to achieve with Twitter. Your objectives should be specific, timely and measurable e.g. to grow your email list by 10% each month.
  2. Define your target audience – Apart from mere demographics you should have an in-depth understanding of your prospective patients’ health needs, challenges, frustrations, life-style goals and even their content preferences. This knowledge (gained through research) will help you to develop interesting content that draws them to you as a trusted source of relevant content.
  3. Understand how Hashtags work – A hashtag is a word or phrase prefixed by the pound symbol (#) e.g. #melanoma or #acne. It is a form of metadata tag used to group Twitter conversations into specific categories. Hashtags are becoming increasingly popular on Twitter as evidenced by the creation of the Healthcare Hashtag Project.

Create Your Account

  1. Create a Twitter account using the name of your business domain e.g. if your domain is skindoctor.com, your Twitter profile should be @skindoctor.
  2. Write up a short bio or description of your profile using keywords that are both ‘Google-friendly’ and consistent with your practice e.g. skin care, etc.
  3. Include your location
  4. Add a link to your website
  5. Upload a logo or photo that is consistent with the branding of your practice
  6. Include an appealing Twitter background that complements your branding

Develop Your Tactics

  1. Follow selectively – focus on people and brands that add value to your business. Use tools such as Twellow or Tweepi to help you find relevant followers on Twitter.
  2. Use Twitter lists – A twitter list is a curated group of Twitter users that is based on specific characteristics. You may create your own list or subscribe to lists created by others. Here’s a step-by-step guide for using Twitter lists.
  3. Use time saving tools – Tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer are complementary to Twitter because they help you manage your account and save time.
  4. Budget your time – allocate about 30 minutes each day to Twitter marketing. Within that time use your favorite tool (see #3) to schedule tweets, monitor conversations and ‘listen’ to what others are saying about you.
  5. Stay on-topic – It’s easy to get distracted on Twitter if you’re not focused. Stay on topic and ignore any conversations that are irrelevant to your practice. Lists and hashtags are effective in helping you stay on topic.
  6. Engage in conversations with others by asking or answering questions, recognizing and thanking people who share your content and so on.
  7. Add  “Follow me on Twitter” buttons in the top-right corner of your website, newsletter, email signature lines and all other digital marketing properties.
  8. Create great content that engages your target audience. And don’t forget to share other people’s content too, particularly when it is consistent with your own brand’s messaging.

Monitor your Progress

  1. Regularly check your mentions (@mentions) to see what people are saying about you
  2. Use Google analytics to see how much traffic is coming to your website from Twitter.
  3. Learn, Adjust, Repeat – be prepared to experiment with new tactics to learn what works for your practice and what doesn’t. If something isn’t working, be prepared to let it go, modify your strategy and keep testing for new opportunities.

What do you think? Twitter has become quite an impressive platform for promoting healthcare and medical brands. As a dermatologist what has been your experience so far?

5 Twitter Tips for Medical Professionals

Twitter. It’s a great tool for social media marketing if you know how to use it. But medical professionals and doctors may be resistant to using Twitter for a variety of reasons.

One is that they really don’t have the time to sit behind a computer desk and ‘tweet’ when they have real patients to take care of. Another reason doctors might resist Twitter is that it appears to be too disorganized, unstructured, and difficult to monitor.

But doctors who are expert Twitter-users will tell you that Twitter is worth taking the time to figure out especially because of its potent ability to amplify your voice above and beyond your current audience.

Here are 5 tips to help you start tweeting successfully:

#1. Be the expert that you are

As a medical professional, you have to be careful about the content that you share. Never, ever post any kind of patient information. Remember that Twitter is a public site and everything you share will leave a permanent trace on Google. Offer your expert knowledge and information that interests your target audience. Also be sure to provide relevant links to posts and articles that are pertinent to your work. Educate!

#2. Know your audience

Are you a pediatrician? Understand that your audience is comprised mostly of parents with young children and also other doctors or students with related interests. Once you understand who your audience is, then share with them information that helps and educates them.

#3. Keep it simple

Speak to the everyday person. Don’t use medical jargon and big words on Twitter. A new mom may not know the jargon that you know and might quickly tune out or lose interest in your message. By using vocabulary that most people understand you can reach a larger audience.

#4. Be relevant

Make sure your posts provide interesting and valuable information to your followers. They will appreciate your efforts and retweet your posts. This is an important step in building your community. By providing significant information to your target audience your followers will suggest your Twitter feed to other people with similar interests.

#5. Reach out to other professionals

Follow other healthcare professionals with similar audiences. Share information and possibly work together on creating educational articles. Retweet their information, and they will retweet yours. But be aware that Twitter can be a time-waster if you don’t know what you’re doing. So be sure to follow only those who add value to your work and feel free to ignore all others.

Key Takeaway

Twitter may seem to be an overwhelming and unstructured environment when you first start out. With time and patience you will discover that it is one of the best ecosystems on the Internet to discover and interact with interesting people in your field, as well as to amplify your own voice and reach a much bigger audience than you would have otherwise. For doctors, it is a great place to educate and share important information with your community.

Over to you: What kind of content do you usually share on Twitter?

6 Ways to Boost Lead Generation with Twitter

The problem with Twitter is figuring out how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

With few rules, fewer leaders, and very little structure, it’s not surprising that many marketers don’t know what to do with it. However, generating leads on Twitter can be amazingly effective.

Twitter is all about relationship building, which makes it very easy to turn followers into valuable prospects, clients, and brand champions. Generating leads on Twitter is possible when you have a strategy.

Here are 6 tips for generating leads with Twitter:

#1. Follow selectively

Twitter is what you make of it. If you’re not careful, it can lead you down multiple rabbit holes. That’s why you should focus on interacting with people or brands that add value to your business when your aim is generating leads on Twitter.

It’s hard to attract and retain people’s attention on Twitter, so the trick is to mainly interact with those who are interested in your knowledge and expertise.

#2. Listen carefully

When you first start using Twitter, listen carefully to discover the interests of people in your industry so that you can approach them with relevant conversations that can lead to long-term relationships.

Remember that sales opportunities don’t happen overnight. Rather than bombarding people with sales messages, try to focus on content that your target audience would find interesting at various stages of their buying process. Ideally, this content links back to your website, where you can further engage with them using marketing automation for lead management.

#3. Use Twitter lists

A twitter list is a curated group of Twitter users that is based on specific characteristics, e.g., key prospects, local media, customers, industry peers, competitors, etc. You may create your own list or subscribe to lists created by others.

Lists help you to organize your followers and apply a strategy around your interactions with them. Since you will follow different people for different reasons, organizing them based on their usefulness helps you to focus on different engagement strategies that benefit your brand.

#4. Provide compelling content

Learn how to craft compelling tweets that contain engaging messages and link to useful content that help your followers gain knowledge about your expertise.

Tweets that revolve around your products and services won’t get much attention. But tweets that offer advice on how to solve a prospect’s problem or improve their situation will help to extend your reach and establish thought leadership in your industry.

#5 Use hashtags

It can be easy to get lost in the masses of content on Twitter. While it may be tempting to watch cute cat videos and get caught up in the latest memes, it’s important to stay focused on relevant topics to your business. One of the ways to filter the noise and find relevant conversations is to use hashtags.

Hashtags are words or phrases prefixed by the pound (#) symbol, which allow users to follow specific conversations based on keywords. One of the most effective ways to find leads using hashtags is to participate in Twitter chats. These are moderated, subject-focused conversations used for educating and informing your audience. There are many Twitter chats that revolve around business-specific hashtags. Use the hashtag discovery tool to find a hashtag that is relevant to your business and start using Twitter chats to engage with prospects

#6. Use the Lead Generation Card

If you’re not aware, Twitter has a new addition to its suite of Twitter Cards – Lead Generation Cards. It is a new type of Twitter Card that allows marketers to collect leads directly within a tweet and is similar to having a landing page within a tweet. The landing page is designed to drive more social media users to particular brands that match their specific needs and interests.

Currently, the Lead Generation Card is only available as a feature of Promoted Tweets – a paid feature of Twitter Ads. Users don’t have to fill out a form. Their information, i.e., name, email, and username are pulled directly into the card. To learn how the Lead Generation Card works, go here.

Your Turn:

Are you using Twitter to generate leads for your business? Share your experience with us in the comments section below.