Healthcare PR Social Media 101: Exploring Twitter

Welcome back to the second week of Snapshot’s introduction to social media for healthcare communicators. If you are just joining us, you may want to see the first installment of this series, Taking LinkedIn to the Next Degree, below.  This week, we will focus on Twitter.  Yes, I know, I know….  Do it anyway. If you still think Twitter is a waste of time by the end of the week, you don’t have to go back.

Twitter’s value is in who you choose to follow and, eventually, in who chooses to follow you and your company. Blogger Michelle Greer compares social media tools like Twitter to cell phones, writing “You don’t get a cell phone and say, ‘Let me find numbers to plug into my phone to justify the use of this object.’ You think of WHOM you would actually want to call and THEN you plug their number in. It’s the conversations that make the medium interesting.” And, for your company, worthwhile. The only way to discover Twitter’s value is by trying it out.  Set aside ten minutes a day this week to:

  • Set up your Twitter profile at http://dailytwitips.com/twitter-2/ Make this a personal profile, not a company one, as you’re testing the waters at this point
  • Put key words into Twitter Search and follow the most interesting names that come up. Some examples:  healthcare, public relations, pr, pharma, biotech, FDA, names of reporters. You can also put these words into Technorati Search to find the leading bloggers on your topics.  Many of them will also be on Twitter.
  • Now put in #nameofyourcompany and #nameofothercompanies.  This is a valuable tool to see what people are saying – or not saying – about your company, your products, your partners and your competitors. The hashtag indicates a topic as opposed to a name.
  • Check in at different times of the day to see what the people you are following are posting. This is called “listening” and it’s the best way to learn how people and companies are using Twitter.  
  • That’s it. If, at the end of the week, you still don’t think Twitter has any value for you or your company, you don’t have to go back.  But, I think you will.
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