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Dr. Chithra Durgam and I randomly started following each other on Twitter in 2017. Around the Fall of that year is when I started creating and publishing my Data Driven Daily Tips. Part of that process was not only publishing the content to my website, but also to all social media outlets. Twitter, in particular is a platform where content has to be native in order to work well. This means that content has to be created for Twitter specifically, and posted there naturally, not through some kind of third party automation tool.

Other social media platforms are the same, like LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, and especially now, TikTok.

When you post natively on platforms, you build relationships with other like-minded people. In my case, Dr. Durgam is an example of that. She has a successful dental practice in New Jersey, and is now working on her personal brand, in content creation and public speaking, among other areas.

At the time, what got my attention was the fact that she’s a dentist on social media. Most of my clients need a hard sell on why they should be on social media, especially those in service-based industries and verticals who have always gotten their clients via “word of mouth.”

It was clear to me that Chithra was making a considerable investment of her time in creating content for social media, and I could only assume this was helping her business.

I was correct, but I really had no idea to what magnitude.

Shortly after our Twitter connection, I became aware that she was actually becoming famous for her work on TikTok (it was still Musical.ly at the time). WHAT? A dentist on TikTok? Why? Well, after reading Crushing It! By Gary Vaynerchuk, in which she’s featured, it became clear to me that Dr. Durgam is a social media rockstar that has figured out how to connect with her target audience on all social media platforms to drive business via organic content strategy.

Not only is she doing it still on social media, but also in Voice Design.

QuHarrison Terry and I sat down with her at Project Voice and got into the details in this interview.

Topics Discussed:

- Creating content in her dental office to use within a Voice App (Alexa Skill)
- Using already created content to advertise the Alexa Skill
- Her individual journey as a Dentist (which she considers one of the most hated professions) trying to get people to come to her office
- Developing content to overcome some of the pre-conceived notions that people have about dentistry and make them interested in coming to the dentist again.

1:20:
- Why all small business owners need to build voice apps
- How to start with a strategy built around your identity and what you want to be known as
- It’s really about just jumping in and not overthinking it
- There’s a lot of areas within platforms that people don’t realize can lead to big surprises
- When you just put content out there, you’re not only doing it to lead people to where you are, but you’re also doing it to understand what the market wants.

3:40
- How does a small business benefit from Voice?
- Is Voice one extra thing to do, or can it help you streamline?

4:53
- How to stay focused on driving new business, running a business and creating so much content
- What advice does she have to a new content creator who also has a business?
- Developing your brand is foundational and compoundingable to use within voice
- How to build a content creation team and utilize your resources to the best ability

7:00
- What Dr. Durgam is most fascinated by in Voice?
- Using Alexa Skills for post-care instructions
- Using Alexa Skills for ordering supplies
- Using Alexa Skills to communicate with people in her office to reduce errors and increase efficiency

8:30
- How she picked between Alexa, Google Assistant, Bixby and Siri

Thanks for reading, watching and listening, and have a great day!

KEEP MARKETING!

Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC and founder of Nashville Voice Conference, has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 15 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing, Email Marketing and most recently, Voice App Design and Development - Alexa Skills and Google Actions. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.

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