10 Twitter Tips that will Transform Your Chiropractic Tweets

Like it or not, Twitter is here to stay. Adults are driving its growth and, according to Mashable, it can’t be stopped. So, as a chiropractor, entrepreneur and small business owner, you should maximize its power instead of ignoring it.

To help you ride the wave, I’ve put together ten tips that will transform your chiropractic tweets.

But, before we get started, remember this principle — information without implementation leads to depression, frustration and failure.

If you want to be successful, you’ve got to implement what’s being taught. So, if you can handle that, let’s dive in!

1. Choose a marketable username that you can brand.

Before we discuss branding, I recommend that you have at least two Twitter accounts — one for your personal use and another for your business. There are many reasons why that go beyond the scope of this post but the bottom line is that your personal life should be separate from your business.

With that said, spend some time choosing a username that reflects your business and represents what you do accurately.

For example, I have six Twitter accounts.

Can you guess what my most recent account, @ChiroWebDesigns, represents?

If you guessed a web design company for chiropractors, you’re correct! The more descriptive you make your username, the easier it will be for prospects to find you.

When considering your online brand, a properly chosen username can quickly impact the growth of your business since it is what shows up within Twitter’s timeline and search results.

Once you’ve chosen a name, your next challenge is to learn how to build and manage your brand’s identity through social media. For an in-depth discussion with a plethora of resources on how this is accomplished, I highly recommend you read Robin Broitman’s excellent post How-To: Build & Manage Your Brand Identity with Social Media.

2. Customize your profile.

Choosing the proper username is extremely important; however, if you don’t customize your company’s profile, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

People and prospects rely on your profile to determine not only if they should follow you but also to learn more about your company and services. Therefore, you need to effectively use the one line bio to your advantage.

View your one line bio as your company’s mission statement and include the web address to your company’s website or blog. Just this one step can dramatically increase traffic to your site.

3. Add a picture or company logo to your profile.

This should be a no-brainer but I’m amazed at how many people simply don’t do it. You need to remember that your photo or logo is just as important as your username. The more exposure it gets, the more recognizable you and your company become. It’s part of the branding process.

Also, think of it through the popular phrase “a picture’s worth a thousand words”. By not having one, you’ll miss a segment of readers that are stimulated more by images than text.

Another way to look at this is to imagine starting a small business on a prominent road that affords plenty of frontage and visibility but you choose not to put up a sign.

How many successful entrepreneurs do you know that would launch a business this way?

I can’t think of a single one.

So, instead of going with the generic Twitter image, update your profile photo so that people know you mean business.

4. Customize your background.

If your goal is to brand your business through social media networks, all of your profiles should be customized as well. The main reason why is because you want a seamless experience for your prospects as they are led from one network to the other.

For example, if you start here on my blog and then click over to Twitter, you’ll notice that I’ve created a background image that reflects the same logo, colors, fonts and style. If you then visit my YouTube channel, you’ll once again notice the similarities.

From a design perspective, this makes readers feel more comfortable, at home and like they’ve never left your blog to begin with. It’s a seamless experience as they’re bounced around to different social media networks.

So, in essence, the background is just as important as your username, bio and company logo. Even though Twitter offers several background images to choose from, I’d recommend staying away from them. They’re okay for the casual non-business user but offer no benefit for the aspiring online entrepreneur.

If you don’t know how to design a background image, you can either learn how to do it or hire someone to create it for you. If you’re more adventurous, I highly recommend you read both Creating A Custom Twitter Profile Background Image by Wesley Craig Green of Geek Entrepreneur and Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background by Darren Rowse, founder of problogger.net and twitip.com.

5. Learn the language.

If you’re new to Twitter, reading tweets can seem like being dropped into a foreign country. The timeline is full of various symbols, acronyms and dwarfed web addresses. But don’t let the new lingo intimidate you. It just takes a little time to understand what it all means.

For instance, if you want to communicate with another user, make sure you place the @ symbol before their username. Once done, it’ll show up both in the recipients timeline and mentions for quick access and reply.

The acronym RT stands for retweet and is used to spread tweets to other users who may not be following the person who originally tweeted. For a blogger, it can produce more traffic to one’s blog and cause the information to go viral.

If you want to index a topic with Twitter’s search, use the # symbol (aka a hashtag). One of the most famous hashtags is #FollowFriday. You can read more about its origins and purpose in my post titled New Series will Feature Chiropractors from Twitter for #FollowFriday.

6. Use a Twitter client.

The choices are endless but the goal is the same — to harness the communication power of Twitter in the most efficient manner.

I’m not going to spend much time on this tip but recommend that you test drive Tweetie (for Mac OS X only), Seesmic, TweetDeck and Nambu (for Mac OS X only).

My personal favorite is Tweetie. Its elegant interface gives me the ability to view and manage all six of my Twitter accounts easily and efficiently while taking up as little desktop real estate as possible. Its companion iPhone app puts icing on the cake by allowing most of its features to be employed while on the go.

Another option is the web-based PeopleBrwsr. It’s not just for Twitter, however, but rather for all of your social media networks. Once you sign up for a free account and personalize it, it’ll connect and allow you to stay abreast with all of your networks through one seamless online interface.

As they put it, “PeopleBrowsr is a Social Search engine and a Conversation Mine that looks into the heart of digital conversations and engages across multiple networks simultaneously.”

7. Use Twitpic & TweetMic.

Social media is more than text. It is a rich conglomerate of text, audio, video, photos and images. However, with Twitter’s 140 character limitation, it’s impossible to experience other media without tools like Twitpic and TweetMic.

Twitpic, like its name implies, allows one to attach photos to tweets. This can be easily done through Twitpic’s website, most Twitter clients and a mobile phone.

TweetMic is an iPhone app that allows one to publish audio to Twitter. So, if the message you want to share is longer than 140 characters and more value is added to the tweet through audio, you can use TweetMic to accomplish your goal.

For a chiropractor, there are many ways to use these tools to market your practice. It just takes a little brainstorming and creativity to get the job done.

8. Set up a Bit.ly account.

Bit.ly is a web service that automatically shortens any URL or web address and formats it for immediate publishing to Twitter. After you sign up for a free account, it also provides tracking for each tweet you post. For the online entrepreneur, this can come in handy for tracking various marketing campaigns through different tweets.

And, as you know, on Twitter every character counts. So, for those needing two extra characters per tweet, bit.ly just launched an identical service called j.mp. To use it, all you have to do is sign in using your bit.ly account information. To find out more, read the most recent blog post by bit.ly titled Go ahead and j.mp.

9. Add yourself to some directories

Twitter directories are a dime a dozen. However, there are a couple that I recommend you join.

The first one was founded by DIGG.com’s founder, Kevin Rose, called WeFollow. Because of its popularity, it generates a significant amount of traffic. And, with any directory, traffic is what you’re looking for!

Another one I highly recommend for business owners is twibs. It offers an exceptional directory, provides an alphabetical listing and is very easy to find any registered business.

10. Feed your content into Twitter.

Obviously, the purpose of technology is to increase our efficiency and effectiveness. However, if you’re not familiar with some of the tools available, technology can become a tremendous handicap.

Fortunately for bloggers there’s a wonderful service that increases both the efficiency and effectiveness of your posts. It’s called TwitterFeed .

Getting started is as easy as creating your account, adding your feed and setting up the timeframe you want your post to be fed to Twitter. Then, each time you publish a blog post, it’s automatically fed to Twitter as a perfectly manicured tweet. Check it out! It’s a great way to spread your message without lifting a finger!

So, there you have it — Ten Twitter tips that will transform your chiropractic tweets!

The above tips are only a start but for the beginner should get you heading in the right direction.

If you’ve been using Twitter:

• What tips would you recommend?
• What tips can you share that have stimulated growth to your blog and practice?

Let me know by leaving them in the {comments} section below.