Facebook sees many family and friends connecting, Instagram is popular among young people and celebrities, and LinkedIn is a hub for professional networkers. Twitter is in a league of its own and requires a specific game plan in order to succeed. Unlike the aforementioned sites, Twitter focuses on bite-sized content. 

Every post is small, whether it contains text, images, links, or video. For that reason, you need to work with the format and make the most of your space. Here’s how to do just that.

What is Twitter?

Twitter, at its core, is a social media site — albeit a strange one. It hosts everyone, including businesses, brands, celebrities, and regular people. Every tweet features three things: the content, the profile photo, and the display name. From there, these posts can be “retweeted” by other users, commented on, and liked. Every interaction is valuable on Twitter, as everything can be seen by others. 

If a user likes your post, there’s a chance it will be displayed to their followers. If they retweet it, it’s posted on their profile for their contacts to see. If they comment, it opens a window of opportunity for you to interact with them on a more personal level. All of these things are beneficial, and you should aim for as much engagement as possible. To do that, you need a serious profile. 

Building an Account

Like Instagram, Twitter is best used on mobile devices such as smartphones. Once you’ve signed in, you need to customize your profile properly. Use high quality, eye-catching images for your profile and header photos. Your description should be short, concise, and accurate. Let users know you’re a hearing care professional and give them an accurate look into what you’re aiming to do. 

The location and website sections are self-explanatory but important. They let users know where you are in the world, which can encourage locals to interact with you. A website link serves as a springboard for visitors, directing them to your professional site and contact information. 

Your pinned tweet will be the first thing users see when they go to your page, so make sure it is relevant. Do not pin a video or large photoset, as this is hard to scroll past and will irritate frequent visitors. Make sure you regularly like tweets and try to follow relevant accounts. Signia regularly posts about hearing loss, hearing aids, and aural health. 

While the desktop site can be helpful, tweets should be optimized on mobile before posting. The draft function can be useful if you want to save a tweet, open and edit it through the mobile app, and then post.

What Works on Twitter?

Because Twitter hosts such a large and varied amount of people, it can be hard to cater to all of them. The key is to find your niche and cater to them specifically. As an HCP, your niche includes other hearing care professionals and the hard of hearing community. This includes people with hearing loss, those who use hearing aids, and friends/family of these people. 

By posting information, inspirational messages, and links to articles, you can appeal to this audience specifically. Establish yourself as a helpful presence and don’t spend too much time promoting yourself. Spread your content evenly between original tweets, retweets from relevant sources, and links to your articles/website. Post regularly and always reply to direct messages.  Connect with other users and establish yourself as a person, not a random account or faceless entity.

Twitter audiences value originality and transparency, so make sure your presence reflects who you really are. 

Stay tuned for the fourth part of our social media series where we’ll highlight how to use LinkedIn successfully as a Hearing Care Professional!