2. Agenda
• What is Twitter
• Who's on Twitter
• What to tweet
• Setting up an account
• Finding your tweeps
3. Agenda, continued
• Twitter for the dental practice
• Leveraging Twitter
• Managing and monitoring
• Questions
4. What is Twitter?
• Social media platform
• Collective conscious
• Microblogging in 140 characters or less
• 300 million tweets, 1.6 billion searches
daily
14. 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
15. 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
16. 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”
17. 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
18. When to tweet
Four periods where activity is at its highest:
•Morning commute
•Lunchtime
•End of day
•After the kids are in bed
19. Quick health check
• Follower to tweet ratios
For example, 10,000 tweets to >500
followers suggests you are doing
something wrong
20. Twitter lingo
• RT or retweet: Sending a message from
someone else to all your followers
21. Replies and Mentions
• When someone sends a public tweet
that includes your Twitter handle
22. Hashtags
Hashtagging a word
or phrase makes it a
hyperlink to other
tweets that contain
the same hashtag.
TipYou can’t have
spaces in hashtags.
23. #cds12 hashtags
Tweeting 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
24. Direct Message
• Sending a reciprocal follower a message
only they can see
• Why do this? e.g.,Weinergate
25. The dark side
of Twitter
• Spam
• Security breaches
Tip Read
http://on.cds.org/SecurityTips
27. Setting up
an account
• Public or private?
• Do you want
patients to find you--
and be able to
follow you?
28. 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
29. 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
30. 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
31. 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.
33. 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
34. Twitter for the dental
practice
Caveat Don’t tweet personally identifiable
patient information.
http://on.cds.org/AMASocialMedia
35. • 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
36. • 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
41. 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.
