How Twitter Can Help You Grow Your Business (Plus 6 Dental Tweeters You Should Be Following)!

Tips, tricks, and inspiration to help you master the selling power of the Twitterverse

Key takeaways:

• 82% of people in the U.S. have a social media profile
• Twitter is a great tool to search for competitors and learn their marketing tactics
• Tweets with images get 150% more retweets
• You can get inspiration from and interact with popular dental accounts to find more customers

82% of people in the United States have a social networking profile and that number is rising each year. That is a lot of people and a lot of mouths, eyes, and lives that need insuring. Social media surfing and posting could be part of your daily prospect-hunting routine, and with 69.3 million users, Twitter could be lucrative for you.

So, how do you tap into this huge market effectively? As with every other form of marketing, it is important to stand out. You have to enhance the Twitter experience, promote your products properly, and make your brand human – remember, Twitter is a platform designed to make connections.

A proper social media strategy is important. You want to attract new followers, nurture leads, increase conversions, grow business recognition, and get plenty of retweets for your compelling content. We will go over some tactics to create a strong strategy, and then look at some popular dental accounts you should be following that can provide inspiration for your own Twitter presence.

Tactics to market effectively on Twitter

Like any other social media strategy, your Twitter strategy creates a foundation for your success, so take the time to do your research to craft a good one. At its core will be the content you create and distribute to engage your followers, attract new ones, bring in new leads, boost your conversions, and increase recognition. Here are some tactics to get you rolling.

1. Competitive research

Twitter is a great tool to research your competition in the marketplace and get a glimpse at their marketing tactics. Trying using different keywords associated with your business to get the most relevant results. Use any competitive intel to shape your strategy. What are they doing that you are not? Do they offer customer service from a Twitter account? What types of posts got the most likes?

Other questions will no doubt crop up as you research the competition, so probe deeply and use what you learn to develop a winning strategy of your own.

2. Audit your own Twitter account

Auditing your Twitter account takes less than a half-hour, and helps you analyze performance. Twitter provides all the information you need to do it. You want to look at:

• Your audience
• What type of content you are posting
• What types of content get the most likes
• Your posting consistency
• When your followers are most active on the platform
• Ways to improve your presence

It’s important to measure both traditional metrics and general sentiments.

3. Keep up with best practices

To keep views, likes, and engagement high, best practices should be reviewed regularly to maximize your social network. As updates are made to Twitter and changes are made, these best practices can change, even at a nuanced level. Using these best practices for organic tweets is a necessity.

4. Mind your buyer personas

The personas of your potential customers should drive all your marketing. Keep in mind who you want to reach when developing both your strategy and your posts – it is their attention you are trying to grab.

Now that you have built your strategy, it is time to talk about the critical steps to increase the power of Twitter for your marketing.

How to use Twitter for your business

You have a marketing/social media marketing strategy, and now it is time to implement it. Here are essential steps to completely leverage the marketing power of Twitter.

• Build a great profile with vibrant images for your banner and profile photo. Make sure you include a description of your business, a link to your business’s website, and physical location, such as a city or state.
• Update your pinned tweet regularly with new and interesting information. This could be a cool statistic, a "tip of the day,” or anything else that will grab attention since this is the first post your audience will engage with.
• Make sure your content adds value. Advance an idea, entertain, or educate. Remember that Twitter’s purpose is to spark conversation.
• Tweets with images get 150% more retweets. Add a photo or a short video, and make sure you mix things up to stay engaging. Use emojis and GIFs along with other types of images.
• Start a regular Twitter chat. It is a great way to show that there’s a human behind the tweet and to interact with your audience. Your audience can ask questions and you can query them to get even more detailed information about your target prospects.
• Optimize content with hashtags. Do hashtag research, use them consistently, make them memorable, and make them easy to spell. But do not use too many hashtags. One or two will do, and make sure they are relevant. Too many hashtags are spammy.

As you use Twitter more and more, you can refine your strategy to find what works best for you. To get your mind working in the right direction, here are some dental accounts on Twitter that are worth following.

6 inspiring Twitter dental accounts

These accounts are not just for inspiration – you should follow them, find other similar accounts to follow, and interact with them regularly. People read comments on posts. If you make great, relevant comments, you will draw people to your account and gain followers.

1. @nichedental – Richard Chwalek is not a dentist, but he’s a digital marketer who focuses on dentistry. You will get plenty of dental industry news and education on issues that affect digital marketing. This can help enhance your own relevant Twitter presence.
2. @ADANews – The American Dental Association is a great resource for anyone in the dental industry, from providers and patients to you as a broker. This account is a one-stop shop for all dental administrative support solutions.
3. @DentistryToday – Follow Dentistry Today to learn the latest clinical news. This can be a great resource to retweet to show you are staying up to date with the industry. 
4. @Benefits_PRO – This account is a top resource for benefits professionals to keep updated with news, analysis, and market trends within your industry.
5. @HowardFarran– Howard Farran is a retired dentist, author, lecturer, and entrepreneur who tweets interesting information about general dentistry. You can retweet his posts to engage your clients in a conversation. Most of his tweets have large illustrations and he posts on a regular basis.
6. @DentistSinging – This account is for some creative inspiration. Dr. Milad went viral by creating dental parodies of trendy songs. The content he shares gives dental health advice but with a funny twist.

Twitter is a valuable marketing tool when used strategically. We hope this has been a helpful read for you. If you want to know more about how to get started, plus some tips and tricks, download our FREE e-book, Using Twitter to Grow Your Business.