Keep Your Tweets Pithy and Witty

While it may not be as popular as Facebook among your dental patients, Twitter can be an important marketing tool, especially if you update your dental practice’s Web site regularly with valuable content. Some people use Twitter as they do Facebook, for mundane updates. But the best way for a dental specialist to use Twitter is to tweet useful dental hygiene tips, links to relevant stories or studies online, or links to new content on your own dental Web site.

The 140-character limit encourages brevity, but many tweets still manage to be uninspired. Remember that your followers are reading many other messages on their Twitter feeds. You are competing for attention—and you have an unfair disadvantage because, let’s face it, dentistry is probably not a primary interest of most of your followers. If your tweet is boring, they will scroll right by you.

Consider this example from a hospital marketing group looking at a tweet linking to a New York Times article about household accidents that occur in the bathroom. The original tweet: “Watch your step while washing up.” The alliteration is good, but would it make you read the story? What if it took an interesting tidbit from the story to draw you in? Consider these improved tweets: “New York Times warns you that 14% of household accidents occur while using the toilet” or “New York Times: Study proves that bathing or showering could be hazardous to your health.” 

The improved tweets used pithy, witty sentences. Just as teasers for the late night news prompt viewers to tune in, your tweets should draw your readers into reading your content. With a little thought, Twitter can be a valuable tool to communicate with patients and referral sources—and to disseminate the content you post to your blog or Web site.