In recent months, the internet application Twitter has seen its popularity skyrocket.  It has been getting a lot of free publicity due to its popularity among celebrities like Ashton Kutcher.   Currently it’s the rage in web-based marketing.  Lots of businesses, large and small are quickly jumping on the bandwagon, apparently without giving it much thought.

Twitter is microblogging.  The way to use it is, you create an account and choose to “follow” certain people.  This means you wish to receive their Twitter posts, or “tweets.”  People in turn follow you and receive your tweets.  You send messages (limited to 140 characters) to your followers at your leisure.   The message can be of anything on your mind, like what you are currently doing; a book you want to recommend to your followers, and so on.

Of course, there are those who  use Twitter as a marketing tool.   The idea is to first build up familiarity with your followers; earn their trust.  Give them some useful info sprinkled in with the mindless tweets (…I just shot a hole in one, hooray!…).  Then, as your relationship with your followers matures, tweet subtle solicitations, or tweets that identify the services you offer.   When feel that you have built up a comfortable relationship with your followers, you can start tweeting special offers.   Do this only when you’ve gone through the steps of establishing trust.  Never tweet a hard sell too early; it will turn off your followers and they will cut the cord.  As in all social media platforms like FaceBook and MySpace, overt advertising to your friends is frowned upon.  You have to build up to it.

So, should you as a chiropractor use Twitter to build up your business?  My recommendation is to first get your email marketing campaign set.   That should be your first priority.  Email has been around much longer; more people have an email account than a Twitter account, and in most cases their email application is already opened up on their computer (whereas they have to log onto Twitter to touch base with their followers).  When that’s done, give Twitter a shot.  What’s nice about Twitter is that you don’t have to worry about your messages getting sent to the spam folder, because people chose to follow you.

My feeling is that the jury is still out on Twitter.  There may be a “tech backlash” against social media platforms as they tend to consume a lot of personal time.  We’ll see.

Dan Perez, DC