How To Connect With Your Patients And Promote Your Practice Using Twitter
By the end of 2010 Twitter will have more than 26 million registered users. At some point, most of those users are going to need to seek some sort of medical treatment. By using one of the fastest growing social media services in the world to your advantage, there’s no reason some of those 26 million Twitter users shouldn’t be sitting in your waiting room tomorrow.
You don’t have to be an Internet marketing guru or some kind of uber geek to be able to use Twitter effectively. I am by no means a poster child for either of the aforementioned genre of online marketers, but I have managed to successfully promote several companies using Twitter by helping them connect with current and potential clients in very creative ways.
That being said, now is probably a good time to start paying attention. Companies have paid me handsomely to do for them what I’m about to teach you. You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish in 140 characters.
The Setup
The first thing you’re going to have to do is get yourself – or your practice – a Twitter account with a good name. The tricky part about this step is that good Twitter account names have become a hot commodity. If it’s an account for a practice with several physicians, use the practice name. If it’s for a single-physician practice, use the physician’s name since he IS the brand you’re promoting. You might have to be creative, but make sure people can identify your practice by your Twitter name.
Once you’re all set up, it’s time to customize your Twitter page. Twitter makes it super simple to add your own flair to your page. You can customize the colors, change the background image and even upload your own background image. I recommend a single color background image with your practice logo, contact info and hours in the top left corner so it’s visible no matter what size monitor it’s viewed on. Opinions on how big your image should be vary, but I recommend 1600px wide by 1000px high.
Getting Followers
So you’ve got your fancy Twitter account with your great name all set up. Now it’s time for you to borrow a move from the Pied Piper and get some followers. I mean what good is it to start Tweeting up a storm if there’s no one following you to pick up what you’re putting down? It would be like throwing a party and not inviting anyone to come.
There are several methods for gathering a respectable stable of followers. You can employ the tried-and-true method of finding Twitter users in or near your area using the Twitter search feature and then following them one at a time, or you can put a “Follow Me” button on the homepage of your website. Although these two methods will eventually get the job done, they tend to take a while to reach the critical mass needed to employ an effective Twitter campaign. The most effective method – the method I use – is to purchase Twitter automation software like Tweet Adder.
Tweet Adder is like having your very own virtual genius intern on a steady regiment of Red Bull and Adderall. It finds exactly who you want to follow on Twitter based on any demographic criteria you designate and can follow or un-follow them at a rate of one user per second. Location, keywords or phrases in their profile like “I need to find a doctor,” number of followers and even followers of another user are just some of the “search for followers” parameters you can set with Tweet Adder. At $54 it’s money well spent considering that by using it you can easily amass more than 1,000 followers within a few months.
Before we move on, I’d like to add one last note regarding followers. The smaller the city you live in, the smaller the pool of Twitter users is going to be. This means it’s going to take longer to get to that critical mass of followers.
How To Promote Your Practice
You should start tweeting from day one regardless of how many followers you have. This not only builds your credibility among the Twitter crowd, but it also allows you to commit some Twitter faux pas while the stakes are still pretty low and not a lot of people are watching. Making Twitter mistakes early on is like the difference between Beyoncé falling down the stairs at her house and Beyoncé falling down the stairs at a concert in front of 20,000 people.
Start small. Tweet things like having a slot open with your massage therapist or links to interesting articles pertaining to your specialty. Think of your Twitter account as its own person with it’s own interests and tweet accordingly. As your number of followers grows, start tweeting bigger things that will entice your followers to re-tweet to their followers.
Things like, “The first five people to come to our office and show this Tweet will get 50% off Zoom Teeth Whitening” will definitely get a few people’s attention. The key is to be creative and tweet things that will be perceived as valuable by your followers. For example, parents will definitely take notice if you let it be known via Twitter that you’ll be giving free sports physicals this Saturday to anyone who says they saw it on Twitter. Even if a parent isn’t on Twitter, chances are if they mention needing a physical for their future Peyton Manning around someone who is following your practice on Twitter they’ll be told exactly where they can go to get a free physical this Saturday. Like I said. Be creative.
Another key Twitter marketing practice is giving things away to your followers via Twitter direct messaging. How you choose whom to give freebies to is your choice. I prefer to reward followers who actively re-tweet my tweets or generally promote my brand. I call these my cheerleaders. I can’t stress how important it is to identify your own cheerleaders and reward them. Every time you reward these people with even the smallest token of your appreciation, they’ll shout it from the rooftops. And trust me, word of your generosity will get around and it will be reflected in the expedited growth of your follower base.
These are just a few of the best practices I’ve found to hold true throughout my tenure as a Twitter marketer. There are tons more that warrant mentioning, but don’t worry, you’ll learn them along the way.
Managing your Tweets
Now that you’ve garnered yourself a few thousand followers and have established yourself as a credible Twitter user, it’s time to turn the Tweet knob to 11 and establish your practice as a bonafied Twitter brand. This is accomplished most effectively by making sure that in addition to the occasional appointment availability tweet and freebie, you make sure to tweet on a regular basis. This will build name recognition among your followers so when they or someone they know mentions needing a doctor of some kind, they’ll think of you.
Unfortunately – as with following people manually – this practice can be quite tedious. But fortunately, there are litanies of automation services that will allow you to not only manage your twitter account but will allow you to schedule all of your tweets in advance.
I use TweetDeck for managing several accounts at once via their desktop client and iPhone app, and I use SU.PR to schedule all my tweets in advance. Both are free and in my opinion these are the two easiest systems to use. SU.PR also supplies users with URL shortening and tracking for when you tweet out links to coupons or specials on your practices site (There goes that whole “being creative” thing again).
I’ve really only scratched the surface on the types of promotional activities a practice could orchestrate on Twitter. The most difficult part of promoting your practice and truly connecting with your patients on Twitter is getting everything set up and automated. Once you get everything established, it’s actually pretty easy. After that, your success is only limited by your creativity and imagination.
James Davis is the Director of Marketing and Public Relations for RegisterPatient.com.
If you have any questions about any of the information covered in this article or about RegisterPatient, please feel free to contact James at 386.697.3743 or via email at James@RegisterPatient.com
