social

Be

Agenda

•What is Twitter

•Who's on Twitter

•What to tweet

•Setting up an account

•Finding your tweeps

Agenda, continued

•Twitter for the dental practice

•Leveraging Twitter

•Managing and monitoring

•Questions

What is Twitter?

•Social media platform

•Collective conscious

•Microblogging in 140 characters or less

•300 million tweets, 1.6 billion searches daily

Total reach: 75,000 and counting!

One tweet= 3,700+ people

What Twitter is not

Or, at least, shouldn’t be..

Demonstration

New Twitter

https://twitter.com/#!/Chicago_Dental

Old Twitter

http://twitter.com/kerikramer

Who’s on Twitter•14% of all Internet users

•More men than women (14 to 11%)

•18-44 is the sweet spot

•Distributed equally across income brackets

•The more educated, the higher the adoption levels

Who’s on Twitter

•Urban and suburban

•Non-whites have a higher rate of Twitter adoption: 25% among African Americans and 19% among Latinos

Source: Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, 2011

What do people tweet about?40% of all tweets are pointless babble, according to 2009 study by Pear Analytics

Tip Separate the wheat from the chaff•Use lists•Follow people who add to the conversation•Don’t contribute to banal “breakfast tweeting”

What to tweet

•Remember, you’re engaging in conversation

•Listen and respond

•Set up Google alerts for your neighborhood, interests and practice

•Keri’s 50/50 guide

When to tweet

Four periods where activity is at its highest:

•Morning commute

•Lunchtime

•End of day

•After the kids are in bed

Quick health check

•Follower to tweet ratios

For example, 10,000 tweets to >500 followers suggests you are doing something wrong

Twitter lingo•RT or retweet: Sending a message from

someone else to all your followers

Replies and Mentions

•When someone sends a public tweet that includes your Twitter handle

HashtagsHashtagging a word or phrase

makes it a hyperlink to other

tweets that contain the same

hashtag.

Tip You can’t have spaces in hashtags.

#cds12 hashtagsTweeting with the

hashtag #cds12 will make your tweets

visible to people at the Midwinter Meeting

through Twitter Walls.

Example at left of a Twitter wall

Direct Message

•Sending a reciprocal follower a message only they can see

•Why do this? e.g.,Weinergate

The dark side of Twitter

• Spam• Security breaches

Tip Readhttp://on.cds.org/

SecurityTips

Hijacked account

Setting up an

account

• Public or private?• Do you want

patients to find you--and be able to follow you?

Assuming the answer is “yes”...

• Tweet under your name, not your practice’s name Tip Use namechk.com to check your name

across social media Tip Keep in mind your Google listing for your

practice• Use a smiling, head-and-shoulders shot

60% of Twitter users surveyed said they followed someone because they looked “friendly”*

• Include your location*Source: Social Media for Dentists 2.0

What are your goals?

Some possiblities…

• Get more patients• Position yourself as a thought leader• Interact with those in your community• Develop relationships with reporters• Engage people who share your interests

Write a bio!People are 8x more likely to follow a user with a

bio

• Use your name• First sentence should relate to what you do professionally• Remaining space for interests, things you might tweet about, affiliations you have• Include website when writing profile

Bio example@LoriColwinDDS

Dentist in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. I love keeping smiles healthy. Spokesdentist for @Chicago_Dental, #Zumba fanatic, super geek and owner of one spoiled rotten puggle, Henry.

Twitter account set-up

demonstrationhttp://www.twitter.com

Finding your tweeps

• Twellow.com (Use Twellowhood for geotargeted search)

• Followerwonk.com

• Hashtags.org

• “Twitter recommends”

• People you already like and admire

• Local media

• Your email contacts list

‣ Tip Use lists function in Twitter to stay organized

Twitter for the dental practice

Caveat Don’t tweet personally identifiable patient information.

http://on.cds.org/AMASocialMedia

•Create a geotargeted search on commonly used phrases, like recommend and dentist through Twitter.com or desktop application

•Link back to your website when you have new content

•Promote, promote, promote it in your practice

• Include Twitter handle in printed materials, like office signage, appointment reminder cards, etc.

• Include in any email correspondence or newsletters

• Bring your tweets into your website, LinkedIn profile, Facebook page

Caveat Don’t auto tweet from Twitter to Facebook or other social media channels

Leveraging Twitter

Managing and

monitoring

NutshellMail.com

Free service that sends you a daily email of activity across your

social media channels.

Social Media Desktops

•Seesmic (demo)

•Hootsuite

•Tweetdeck

Have integrated URL shorteners, too.

URL shorteners

Goo.glBitly.com

OwlyBudURL (fee service)

Resources

•Slideshare.net/ChicagoDentalSociety

•Mashable.com

Questions

•Send a tweet to @Chicago_Dental

•Coming to Midwinter? Use the #cds12 hashtag to get added to the list!

•Are you a member? Tell us in your tweet and we’ll add you to the list.