Want to get your finger on the pulse of the public dialogue? Create lasting relationships with people around the world? Communicate instantly with more people and communities at a rate greater than ever before? ….for free?! Try Twitter.
We know Twitter can be confusing for first timers, so we created this guide with basic tips and vocabulary. First...
You can follow UM SPH on Twitter. And...
5 Tips to Get the Most Out of Twitter:
1. Search out people who tweet about your topic area or about healthcare in general. As in the rest of the world, in the digital world you have to reach out and find your audience. Searching your particular health topic or interest is the obvious way to find people connected to your mission. But, searching other parts of healthcare can also help you discover new and alternative paths to addressing your health topic. As you find the people and organizations you’re interested in, start to follow them and get involved by joining the conversations they’ve started.
2. Find influential people in your field or topic and see what they’re following: It’s not always WHAT you know, but who you know... Right? Twitter is an excellent venue to reach out to influential leaders in politics, healthcare, and within communities. Through following their Tweets, engaging them in live online chats, or creating a specific list serve that includes all your important industry leaders and peers, you can strategically place yourself in a network of people that can help you achieve your program goals. This also puts you in direct contact with influential leaders, allowing you to ask questions of them, and allowing them to engage you about your campaign.
3. Follow important organizations or other industry experts. A list is found here. Health organizations, publications, and other important entities also create list serves in Twitter. Following organizations, such as #nhssm or #APHA, and taking part in their popular live chats allows you to keep up-to-date on any relevant goings on in the health behavior arenas. It can also offer you tips, insight, tools, or general knowledge relative to your area of interest.
4. Create a #hashtag related to your campaign and start using it in as many tweets as you can. There is also a comprehensive list of existing Healthcare Hashtags here. By creating and using a #hashtag for your campaign, you create an additional branding and promotional tool. The #hashtag gives your target audience an additional way to identify you and remember your message. You can also stamp every brochure or paper marketing material with the #hashtag to encourage people to follow your campaign digitally. Then when you look at your follower data, you have a quantifiable means to measure the reach of your Twitter campaign.
5. Reach out and help people on Twitter in whatever capacity you can. This will gain you followers and, even more importantly, respect and admiration from those followers. As with all work in the field, reciprocity is crucial in building beneficial Twitter relationships. Help other campaigns promote their messages, introduce people across networks, or reach out directly to one of your campaign followers. It is just as important to build relationships on Twitter as it is in face-to-face communication.
Now that you’ve got some general tips, onto...
6 Twitter Terms, Demystified:
1. RT = RETWEET. On each tweet there is a button that says, “retweet.” This allows you to post a message you like written by someone else and give them the credit.
2. MT = Modified Tweet. This is a retweet, but instead of just posting someone else’s exact tweet, you modify the language, but not the tone.
3. @ Reply or “at reply.” To reply to another person’s tweet, click the button “reply” on their tweet. Twitter will notify them that you have responded. If someone responds to you, you will be notified in whatever way you set up your account – i.e. email, text, push notifications, etc.
4. Mention. When you want to directly acknowledge a person or organization in a tweet, you can use their @twittername. Using the “@” before their Twitter name notifies the person/organization about the mention and creates a link for your followers and others to easily access their account.
5. DM = Direct Message. Just like it sounds, it’s a direct communication between two tweeters that is just seen by them. Both tweeters must already be following one another in order to DM. Clicking the “person” button on their profile will get you to the DM option.
6. #=Hashtags. Hashtags are very useful when trying to create a conversation around a specific topic. Whether for a conference, campaign or just a casual conversation, Hashtags are a useful tool to spread information on Twitter while also keeping the dialogue organized. If everyone uses the #for-a-certain-topic, it makes that topic easier to search and help boost it into Twitter’s trending topics.
Do you use Twitter in your public health work? Share your thoughts in a comment!
No comments:
Post a Comment