5 Reasons Why Your Practice Should Use Twitter

1. Connect With Your Patients
This is the main reason why your practice should be using Twitter. People may visit your website every once in a while, maybe to get some information about your clinic or to read your blog. While this is a good opportunity to connect, if you really want to get involved with your patients online, you have to go to where they hang out online– and many Twitter users login every day!

As they browse their Twitter feed, you want them to see interesting content shared by you – like your blog posts, links to interesting articles, and health tips for them to put into action throughout the day.

2. Gather Feedback
When you connect with your patients, you can ask for feedback to help improve practice procedures. People take pride in their opinions. If they feel that they have contributed something to help your practice, they’ll feel more attached to it.

3. Marketing
You can promote your practice for free! Well, free in the sense that you don’t have to pay to use Twitter, but to truly take advantage of Twitter to connect with patients you’ll want to dedicate 15-30 minutes each day to tweet and reply to tweets. Consider occasional tweets about your promotions and even offering a deal exclusive to your Twitter followers.

4. Promotions and Giveaways
Promos and giveaways are perhaps the greatest way to engage your patients online. People love discounts and incentives. You’ll be able to get patients in the door by offering them something of interest and in return they help spread the word about your practice. Consider a contest where entry is simply a tweet about your clinic.

5. Brand Loyalty
Once you’ve engaged and helped your patients (followers) on Twitter, they will feel a stronger connection to your practice. You’ll develop a bond and they’ll stay loyal for a long time. I’d suggest that your profile picture on Twitter be of you rather than your clinic logo – people feel stronger bonds to people than companies/logos.