Twitter has a great deal of usefulness for doctors and can be a powerful part of your reputation building and patient engagement toolkit.
One doctors have most of the basics of twitter covered, the challenge becomes how to use Twitter effectively.
As discussed in Part 1 of this article, Social Media guru Gary Vaynerchuck very appropriately labeled Twitter as the ‘cocktail party of the internet’. Thinking of Twitter in this way greatly helps to grow your skills with Twitter.
At a cocktail party you can’t connect to everyone in the room simultaneously, yet you can get a feel for what is happening and who is talking with whom. If you have interest in a particular person, you also have the opportunity to connect to them. You might even have the chance to introduce people to others, and that is the true leverage point.
As a doctor using Twitter you can essentially do the same thing. Twitter enables you to follow others and connect to them one to one. If you have specific people that interest you, such as favorite authors, other medical professionals, medical associations, you can start to follow them and stay up to date with their tweets.
Here are three advanced tips to use Twitter to grow your reputation and engagement.
1) Twitter is a launching platform
Doctors can use twitter both as a way to connect to current patients, and also to extend their influence in the community surrounding them.
Don’t be shy to get involved and share your thoughts on areas where you have experience. You can write articles, share videos or blogs, or even make comments via tweets that are valuable for others to know.
Think of twitter as place that launches you to other destinations. Sharing links and quality content means people will return to your tweets to find more great places to go. In essence you become the launching platform for them.
Twitter has the benefit of being both local and international, so through careful hashtags and following the latest trends you can start to get more involved in the conversations happening.
As you use Twitter more, you will likely have favorite hashtags that you often follow. (Some examples might be #healthcare, #health, #doctors, #wellness, etc.) You can also add #hashtags to any tweets you make, or you retweet.
One word of caution, don’t add too many hashtags just for the sake of it, make sure that they add value to your post, and that readers will actually want to read the post based on the trend. Doing this builds trust and makes people more likely to follow you.
2) Twitter is a sharing platform
Perhaps the most counterintuitive thing about Twitter is that it is a great place to empower others. Many people fall into the trap of only posting their own content. Yet the true value of Twitter is in collaboration and curation.
When you find articles or videos that you think are valuable, make sure to tweet them, or retweet them. Doing this shows you have your finger on the pulse, and it also shows you are generative. You are giving credit and attention to others, and you are sharing value with others.
3) Twitter is an engagement platform
When thinking about Twitter, remember there are people on the other end of the line. They want to be treated like people, and engaged with in a normal way.
When you share an article from someone else, be sure to add their twitter handle into the post so they get some recognition. If somebody retweets something you posted or shared, be sure to @reply to them and thank them for the retweet. Just as in real life, you can go a long way by acknowledging others and being courteous.
As you grow your followers, think of it not as a measure of popularity, but as an indicator of your ability to connect and add value. If you come from the mindset of engaging one person at a time, your followers and your success with Twitter will grow.
Want to Read More?
Gary Vaynerchuck’s Keys to Twitter Success by inc.com
How to Use Twitter by wired.com
Take your Twitter Game to the Next Level by Meena Hussain
