Emergency exits: Important for airplanes and social media strategies

You’ve probably found yourself scrolling through #MedTwitter once or twice. Or maybe you’re there once or twice a day. After all, it’s a great place to keep up with the latest healthcare news and promote your team as industry thought leaders. 

Unfortunately, Twitter’s recent evolution following a highly-publicized change in administration has left the platform’s future — and credibility — uncertain. Which means that the credibility of your brand and Twitter-savvy employees is also up in the air. And because healthcare is an industry where perception is reality, they are, essentially, guilty by association.

The challenge now is determining how to protect your reputation without losing the equity, content, and engagement that you’ve spent time and money building.

It’s not jumping ship — it’s finding a life raft

The thought of cutting ties and moving away from a platform that is familiar — but that no longer aligns with your brand’s mission and values — can be daunting. And whatever you call it (contingency plan, exit strategy, escape route, etc.), you need to have ways to shift platforms now and in the future. Let’s be honest, Facebook and Instagram might not be far behind. 

It’s all about salvaging your existing audience — your exit strategy should start with locating them on other platforms. If they love what you post on one platform, they’ll love what you post on another. So why throw out your social content and strategies when you can just pack it up and bring it directly to your followers? Adapting to another platform’s best practices is much less of a headache than starting from the ground up.

"You don't need to start packing up your Twitter presence just yet, but it'd be good to know where your moving boxes are." —Aubrey Chalene, Social Media Strategist

Creating a social media strategy for when you need a quick exit

It’s also time to branch out from how you’ve always operated within traditional platforms — yep, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn can all now be considered “traditional” in the digital world — and move towards a model of segmenting and targeting your audiences by platform. There are three things you need to keep in mind in order to do this successfully:

1. Understand your audience and listen to what they want. The most efficient way to do this is by looking at your reporting and analyzing mined data. Taking what you know about them and applying it to your social strategy is a crucial first step.
2. Be open to trying new things. Within safety and privacy regulations, as always. While a new approach — like creating new content, touching on out-of-the-box topics, or bringing influencers into the mix — or a new platform might seem risky, revitalizing the way you handle social media can catch, and keep, a follower’s attention and produce results sooner rather than later.
3. Keep your key players informed and engaged. These include your internal audiences, stakeholders, organizational creators, and whoever keeps your social engine running. Keeping them in the loop as you evolve is imperative, because the last thing you want is to lose your internal support system and momentum.

Don’t feel the need to jump into a new strategy all at once, either. Once you determine which approach best suits your needs and your audience, take time to observe what is and isn’t working and implement your learnings as you go.

While it isn’t time yet to abandon your Twitter accounts, having a plan now — whether it be for Twitter or any other social outlet — will save you from unexpected growing pains down the road. And a smooth transition from one platform to another is something that your physicians, leaders, and audiences will be grateful for.

If you want to learn more about stepping up your social media game, all you have to do is download our 2023 trends report.