More and more medical practices are using social media as a means of keeping in contact with patients and conveying relevant general information about their areas of practice. Among those platforms, the most useful in this capacity is, by a wide margin, Twitter.
Twitter offers unique opportunities to reach out to specific audiences without spending a dime on advertising. That said, any paid ad campaign will fine-tune your targeting in a way that more than justifies keeping a small advertising budget handy for that purpose.
If your goal is to not spend anything on this, at least initially, the advice that follows provides a great roadmap for increasing your reach and targeting a general audience. This can be an advantageous strategy for medical e-comm businesses and the like, but not so much for local practices. Eventually, you will need to spend the money on a few targeted ads to attract local searchers to boost SEO and rank high in local searches.
Bearing all of this in mind, here are a few steps you can take to build a successful Twitter strategy:
Start Your Twitter Channel
If your practice isn’t already on the platform, set up a channel. It’s free, and all that it requires is a valid email address for verification purposes. Make sure the channel name is the same as the practice name. If that isn’t possible due to duplicates or other issues, make sure it’s in the channel description.
Start Populating Your Channel with Good Content
Before you start advertising your presence on Twitter, you want some interesting, good-quality content for new users to scroll through. I recommend having at least five pieces of unique content, including at least one long-form blog post about the practice and the conditions it addresses. Blog content should be the primary focus, but there are other ways to populate your channel to make it look a little more established at the beginning.
I’m talking about using curated content to augment the original. The link to the left explains what this is in detail. I’ve posted several blogs on the subject here, as well. Basically, this means finding relevant, vetted content from trusted sources and using it as the foundation of your blog posts. Curated content usually includes original introductory and, sometimes, closing content to flank the content on which you’re commenting.
Let Patients Know You’re Out There
Once you have a well-established channel with links back to your own blog, send a message out to your entire patient email list. Let all your patients know that your channel exists and give them a call to action to subscribe. That last step is crucial since people rarely do anything without being asked or told, but they will if they’re simply reminded or asked.
Posting signage in patient-populated areas of your practice with calls to subscribe is also a great idea. For younger patients, a QR or similar code on your signage that links directly to your channel will increase subscription rates. Older patients might better appreciate a business card with the URL. A QR code wouldn’t hurt here either.
Provide New Content Regularly
This is, arguably, the most important long-term consideration for keeping patients engaged on Twitter. Always being in their feed, always there with great blog content that answers common questions, continually educating about the issues your practice addresses — all these things make for long-term engagement. If you want to use Twitter effectively as a communication tool, you want to maintain that level of engagement.
What this means, primarily, is ensuring that there is always new, good-quality content that patients will appreciate hitting your channel. Most practices don’t have the means to dedicate the time or effort to that. This is why businesses of all descriptions work with content creation specialists, like copywriters, to maintain a strong online presence.
Never Use Twitter for Personal Communication
Even direct messaging on Twitter can be seen by other users, Twitter admins, and other entities that could compromise confidentiality laws like those outlined in HIPAA in the United States. Do use the platform to communicate the availability of resources, new services, and general reminders about personal wellness (annual physicals, flu shots, etc.).
In fact, don’t look at any social channel as private or safe for one-to-one patient communication. Keep in mind that, in this context, we’re talking more about broadcast-style communication, not appointment reminders. For the latter, I recommend adopting or developing a secure practice-specific smartphone app if you haven’t already.
Final Takeaway
Twitter is a powerful communication tool when used properly as part of your social media marketing content strategy. Couple that with the power of experienced, professional writers, and you have a recipe for immediate and sustainable results.
I’ll leave you with a slightly more personal note: While no business likes thinking about having to spend money to stay afloat, it’s a reality of marketing. The advantages to your practice in working with a copywriting company like Beez that specializes in medical copywriting and other medical marketing content are many. If you want to maintain high-quality content, working with us and our extensive pool of talented content creation professionals could be your solution. Contact us today to learn more.
