Twitter for Marketing

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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been immersed in social media marketing (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr). I was certainly having a hard time getting my head around new ways businesses could use Twitter, and I think I’ve come up with one…. communicating discounts and specials to your clients. If you sell services, why not create a free webinar or teleconference (www.freeconferencecall.com) and use Twitter to market it! If you want clients in your store, send out a “tweet” on a special promotion to all your followers (i.e. buy one get one). This is an absolutely free, and simple way to communicate with all of your patients.

Ok, I know you’re asking… what is Twitter? Twitter has gained huge popularity since it was highlighted on Oprah a few weeks ago. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send and read other users’ updates known as “tweets.” Tweets are limited to 140 characters. It basically allows you to send out large numbers of text messages to anyone who is following you. You can also view the tweets via Twitters website ( http://twitter.com/ ).

The key is to get people to follow you! (or your practice). What do you need to do:
1. Sign up for a free Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/ )
2. Setup your profile (upload a picture, it could be you, your practice pix, logo, etc..)
3. Once you get an account, you’ll be given a url that others can use to follow you (i.e. mine through the IAPAM’s is: http://twitter.com/iapam )
4. Get the word out! Have your web guy put up a “Follow us on Twitter” logo that links back to your Twitter page. add your Twitter url to all your business cards, and promotional items (especially any direct mail pieces).
5. As people choose to “follow” you, you’ll see them when you log into your Twitter account (that you setup in step 1).

Sometimes its a great idea to setup an account to follow some people to see what they are saying. Once you’ve setup an account, use Twitters “Find People” button at the top of the page and look for us (search for iapam).

If you want to check out the top listings of who is being followed, you can check out http://wefollow.com/

If you have any comments, questions, etc.. please feel free to post them!

Jeff Russell
Follow Me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/iapam