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10 Tweets for Your Imaging Center’s Twitter Account

Getting your imaging center or medical practice involved with social media can be a challenge, so if you’re not sure where to get started you aren’t alone. Following health care social media best practices means providing value, being genuinely caring and being accessible.

With more patients turning to the Internet and social media platforms for medical advice and resources, your healthcare marketing strategy needs to go beyond just referring physician marketing. Healthcare social media and radiology marketing on platforms like Twitter, will help improve your online reputation and reach more actively searching patients.

Read More - Physician in Social Media: Twitter and How to Get Involved

health care social media radiology

Here are 10 tweet ideas for your imaging center to post on your Twitter account to get you started:

1.     Sharing current or past Blog Posts​

2.     Engage with local media personalities or news casters discussing health in your town. Most people in the media are also active on Twitter!

3.     Spreading the word about health care news that affects your patient

4.     Share photos of your staff doing something unique, like celebrating Halloween by dressing up. Then be sure to use holiday hashtags that are trending!

5.     Funny industry meme

6.     #TBT Tweets – Share a funny picture of your staff or your radiologist from back in the day. Twitter users want to see that you can have a personality.

7.     Links to other interesting or valuable articles, even if they aren’t on your websit

8.     Comment on something trending in your area. For instance, if you have a parade or event or local holiday coming up, engage in that conversation. Everything you tweet doesn’t have to be about your services, it can be about your involvement in the community too.

9. Sharing your contact information with an image attached, side note tweets with image content are much more likely to be engaged with

10.     Use geo-tag searches to find people tweeting about your kinds of services in your area. For instance, you can use this formula “MRI geocode:27.9959851,-82.7343884,60km” to find people who are tweeting with the term “MRI” within 60 km of your Google Earth coordinates. See who is close by using your terms and reach out to them to see if you can help! 

Radiology marketing will never be the same, so it is time for you to jump on board!

Read More: How to Get Followers on Twitter with Health Care Marketing

 

Why Your Radiology Practice Needs a Social Media Strategy

why your healthcare practice needs social media

Many radiology groups think social media in the medical field is a waste of time, but we're here to tell you why that just isn't the case. Your practice needs a social media strategy for a number of reasons, but to excel in radiology marketing you don't even have to do much. Healthcare providers are accepting that health care social media is a necessity, but your competition may not yet be on board. 

Let's look at some reasons why your practice needs a social media strategy:

1.     Because it's the best way to reach consumer-driven patients…

Your mother might say, “if Johnny and everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?” In this case, your answer should be a resounding, “YES MOM, I’M JUMPING AND I LEFT MY PARACHUTE AT HOME.” Doctors, hospitals and specialists all over the country are using their Facebook business pages to reach patients, so radiology practices must get on board. Patients are turning to Twitter as well, thanks to the Health Care Hashtag project brought to you by Symplur, making weekly tweet chats and hashtags trend within the industry.

2.     Because Search Engine Optimization is your key to success…

SEO practices help your website rank higher for patients searching certain keywords. Want to be the first website to show up when they search for “best doctor in Tampa?” Well, you’ll have to work for it.  New SEO practices have shown that more weight is being put on your social sites.  This means, if you have patients providing reviews and sharing your posts with their friends, you will be in a better position for patients looking online for practices like yours.

3.     Because older people are really into “The Facebook”…

My most active Facebook friend is 100% my Grandma. She “Likes” and shares every post I make, no matter what it is about. She “Likes” every local business she is a patron for, including her doctors.  Specialists like radiologists have a largely elderly patient population, but they assume they aren’t reliable for social engagement. That just couldn’t be further from the truth, especially when it comes to “The Facebook,” as my grandma calls it.

4.     Because you can use Twitter to reach the unreachable…

PR pros don’t tell you this secret openly, but Twitter is the most affordable and easiest way to reach your local media.  Industry leaders, community influencers and news reporters are all over Twitter. You can open lines of communication with them and then when they have the chance to highlight you or use you as a resource, you’ll be ready.

5. Because people like to complain…

People are much more inclined to share negative experiences than positive ones. Let’s face it, by nature, we like to whine and complain. Often, your disgruntled patients will turn to social sites like Facebook, Google Places or Yelp to air your dirty laundry.  If you don’t manage your pages, you can’t defend your practice, correct the situation and improve the patient’s impression of you. Care doesn’t end when your patients walk out the door; you need to be accessible to them.

Read More: What If My Practice Gets a Bad Review on Facebook

How To Get Followers on Twitter and Boost Engagement

We are often asked by health care organizations and practices which social media marketing platform is most important for their business, which is a hard question to answer because each platform is valuable in its own way. 

 

Facebook is used in health care marketing for:

  • Engaging with patients on a personal level and collecting reviews
  • Sharing consumer-facing news and updates
  • Hosting contests for referring physicians

(Read More: 15 Topics for Facebook Posts in Health Care)

LinkedIn is used in health care marketing for:

  • Connecting with industry experts
  • Building your reputation as a thought leader, whether you’re a physician, hospital administrator or marketer
  • Sharing original blog content from your website

While Twitter can be used in health care marketing for:

  • Responding to your community’s tweets about health care and medical issues
  • Reaching out directly to media contacts
  • Sharing valuable articles, statistics and infographics
  • Finding community updates and industry news
  • Engaging in social conversations by tracking certain terms ex: affordable drugs

 

So, how do you get started on Twitter to excel at social media in healthcare? The first steps are to find who you want to follow, to get new followers and then get people to engage with your tweets. Here’s how to become a health care influencer on Twitter:

 

1.     Follow the best people: Don’t just follow willy-nilly, there should be a reason you’re following them.

  • Find out who are the top influencers in health care on Twitter and identify which ones you can learn from and which ones would value your messages. See SlideShare of 2014 Influencers below.
  • Pick the top 10 journalists who are writing the kinds of articles you could potentially be featured in or who you could provide syndicated content/guest posts to. TIP: Some of these can be national writers but don’t forget to focus on journalists at your local newspapers.

2.     Use the right hashtags: Hashtags enable you to see all conversations related to a topic such as #TwitterTricks

  • Find all appropriate health care hashtags on Symplur’s website for healthcare hashtags.  You can find upcoming conferences, tweet chats and popular medical topics.
  • Be sure to set your location on Twitter so you can see what topics are trending in your area. It’s okay to use hashtags related to pop culture or community news sometimes, you don’t always have to be specific to health care. The goal is to provide value and join the conversation.

 

3.     Search and track terms: You can also find tweets using certain keyword phrases when they aren’t used as a hashtag with the following search tricks.

  • Use location-based search to find people within your vicinity using certain words in their tweets. Ex: MRI near:Tampa within:10mi (hint: No spaces between :Tampa and :10mi)
  • You can filter search results based on sentiment by adding :) or :( to your search query to see positive and negative tweets about a subject.
  • Use advanced search forms to find specific combinations of words in tweets:

o   Tweets containing all words in any position (“MRI” and “cost”)  ex: “Anyone know the cost of an MRI in Tampa?”

o   Tweets containing exact phrases (“MRI price”) ex: “I found an MRI cost comparison tool online.”

o   Tweets containing any of the words (“MRI” or “cost”)

o   Tweets excluding specific words (“MRI” but not “cost”) ex: “Do you think Arian Foster’s MRI will show a torn Achilles?”

4.     Tweet with purpose: Be sure to actually engage.

  • Tweet directly to a person you’re hoping to engage with
  • Use hashtags, but don’t go overboard.  A tweet with 1-2 hashtags is more likely to be retweeted or shared, but if you go over 3 hashtags you’re cutting your chances of engagement by 50%.
  • Reply to someone you’ve found via advanced search and communicate with them by serving as a resource or answering their questions.

TIP: If you’re tweeting without doing any of these three things or sharing a link to something on your website, you are essentially talking to yourself. You know that homeless guy downtown who is always yelling, at no one in particular? You are the social media version of him, in this case.

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