Twitter a Healthcare Marketing Tool? Maybe.

From the moment I heard about the social networking site Twitter I was skeptical. The premise—people post short reports (140 characters or less) about what they're doing and send them out across the Web in live time—seemed absurd. Really, who has time to follow the minutia of people's lives? Who cares if someone is eating an apple at the airport or feeling sad that their sports team didn't win?

And there's only so much time you can dedicate to social networking sites. I don't care how cool it is or that everybody else is doing it. I don't know about you, but I have work to do.

On the other hand, Twitter is a potential marketing tool. And although it's good for reporters to be skeptical, we're also supposed to know a little something about subjects before we express that skepticism. So on Tuesday afternoon I signed up for my own Twitter account.

I hate to admit this, but it was easy. It was kind of fun. And I did discover a baker's dozen of potential marketing applications—from promoting your fundraising events to organizing focus groups to boosting blog readership. Keep reading for my "top 13" list.

Yes, it was a little confusing at first—anything new is bound to be. But after poking around the site for a little while I figured out how to do several things. The first thing I did was announce that I am writing about Twitter.

Here's what else I did on my very first visit to Twitterville:

• Learned that "following" is Twitter talk for subscribing to someone's tweets—and "tweets" is Twitter talk for the short posts that members write.
• Looked for sources in the healthcare marketing field. (Let's just say the pickings were slim.)
• Checked out the twitterings of Paul Levy, President and President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and signed up to "follow" him. No, not stalk. Follow. Coincidentally, later in the day he twittered: "Who are all these people following me?"
• Found a bunch of new healthcare marketing resources, including a couple of blogs and some online articles, two of which you'll find in today's Editor's Picks section.
• Followed a link to an article about whether robotic surgery actually improves quality of care or if it's just a marketing ploy.
• Answered a question about healthcare marketing conferences and mentioned the HealthLeaders Media Marketing Awards event.
• Read a tweet from a healthcare consumer who called the ability to e-mail his physician "heavenly."
• Read another from a healthcare consumer who was mad that a hospital advertises its open MRI but doesn't let patients use it unless they have a claustrophobic attack.

So I got a couple of healthcare marketing story ideas, found some interesting articles to share with you in this e-newsletter, and plugged the HealthLeaders Media Marketing Awards. Then I got a little bored. And it was time to get off the Internet and write my column.

So what happened to my reporter's skepticism? Don't worry, it's still there. After the fun of learning something new starts to wear off, you realize that, like any other form of social media, you have to work hard to make it work for you. And one of the biggest hurdles is building that network of followers. How do you reach that audience? And how do you convince them that they want to "follow" you?

Make it work for you
It seems to me the answer is that you must target a specific audience—not shoot for the entire Twitterverse. And then offer that market segment relevant, current content without overwhelming them with information or sounding self-promotional.

Say you have a star obstetrician on staff. You could set up an account for her and send daily tips and the occasional announcement about classes and events to expectant mothers. New OB patients sign up when they first come in (they can get the Twitter updates via their cell phones without ever having to log into the online site).

Here are 13 ways you might use these short-form communications to targeted audiences:

• Direct followers to the latest posts on your CEO's or patients' blogs. I twittered Levy today and asked him if Twitter is complementary to his blog. "Very," he twittered back. "There's a nice reinforcement between the two mediums."
• Promote upcoming events such as classes, seminars, and health fairs.
• Solicit charitable donations and recruit volunteers.
• Share the results of fundraising events with donors.
• Post messages targeted at patients in specific service lines—heart healthy tips for cardiology patients, healthy eating and exercise tips for bariatric patients, and so on.
• Announce awards and quality rankings.
• Monitor tweets—both positive and negative—about your own organization from employees or customers (just do a search for your own hospital's name).
• Recruit focus group participants in a special Twitter forum.
• Give updates on construction projects to neighbors and other stakeholders.
• Post links to research papers by your physicians.
• Follow the competitions' tweets.
• Post job openings and talk about what makes your organization a great place to work.
• Keep an eye out for job postings in your own field (I won't tell if you don't).

You can follow me on Twitter if you want. But until I can figure out how to segment my audience and only give them the information they need and want, I probably won't be writing any 140-character posts there.

Unless I'm eating a really delicious apple at the airport.