Twitter for Aesthetic Practices and MedSpas

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 how a medical spa or aesthetic practice could use Twitter, and I think I’ve come up with one…. communicating discounts and specials to your clients. The scenario would be, you have your treatment rooms empty next Thursday and you need to fill them, you could send out a “tweet” on a special promotion to all your followers (i.e. free microderm with all Botox treatments). 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. 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). Alternately, here a couple of people to follow to get you started:
IAPAM: http://twitter.com/IAPAM
Dr. Michael Persky: http://twitter.com/michaelperskymd
Alan J. Bauman, M.D: http://twitter.com/DrAlanBauman
Dr. Doris Day: http://twitter.com/DrDorisDay
Wendy Lewis: http://twitter.com/WLCO

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