Google+ Twitter Equals Marketing Opportunity

This week, I broke down and created a Twitter account. Yes, I have hopped on the 140 characters-or-less bandwagon. Scads of healthcare organizations are my fellow riders and many of them are veteran tweeters.

Shameless plug: follow me @anna_webster for my newbie tweets. Though I understand that being connected I should "friend" "follow" and "circle up" – the results may be information overload.  By the way, you should also be following @healthleaders.

I am currently combating SPF --- also known as – social platform fatigue. If you're like me, your inbox is constantly at the brink of spam spill-over and need a ven diagram for all your friends, foes, followers, and flocks. But, social media isn't going away and healthcare leaders should take advantage.

According to the 2011 HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey:

• 18% of leaders say their marketing efforts do not include a social media element
• 36% of leaders say social media is effective or very effective

Facebook continues to dominate as a social media platform, with 79% of respondents saying they use it for promotions. Twitter trails as a close second with 62% of respondents saying they use it as a promotion platform. There are both pros and cons to joining the ever-increasing league of Tweeters.

My thoughts on Twitter: Good for live coverage at events, data mining, or stalking healthcare celebs (@Paulflevy and @Atul_Gawande). Bad if you have A.D.D. or if you are @RepWeiner.