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Tweeting doctors boost exposure and uncover their market
South Florida Business Journal – by Jeff Zbar

Paul Wigoda tweets a few times a week. It may be about breast augmentation, statistics on pectoral implants or the difference between “smart” and traditional liposuction.

To date, some 122 Twitter users are “following” the doctor. He hopes he’s reaching a new audience with every tweet.

“This is just one more way to speak to patients and potential patients,” said Wigoda, who practices plastic surgery in Fort Lauderdale. “It’s a quick way to interact with them.”

As a physician whose practice is 10 years old, Wigoda isn’t alone – or even a pioneer – in using Twitter to promote his business. In February, surgeons in Detroit tweeted live from the operating room during a cancer procedure. Across the social media landscape, more physicians – and other professionals, like attorneys and accountants – are using Twitter to reach their target market and establish their expertise.

The “Twitter-verse” is the new social and commerce marketplace, even for professional service providers like physicians, said Marvin Dejean, CEO of Markcom Industries, a Coral Springs interactive marketing agency. While some physicians, attorneys or accountants historically have shied from marketing and advertising, social media outreach for many no longer can be ignored, he said.

“This universe is becoming larger and larger. It’s becoming the marketplace touching every commerce and consumer point you can think of,” he said. “Online is the next marketplace, and social media plays a tremendous role in that.”

Wigoda works with a local interactive marketing firm to write three or four tweets each week, which the firm then posts to his site. Tweeting a few months now, Wigoda often will write a blog post – maybe on a procedure or a special offer – then tweet about it, he said. Whether Twitter is driving new business or new leads are coming from his Web site or blog, Wigoda cannot say. But, he believes he cannot ignore that marketplace.

To read the full article visit the South Florida Business Journal.

It’s no secret that traditional newspapers are facing an uphill battle when it comes to circulation and readership in this era of fast-paced, on-demand and online news. Instead of fighting this current, the South Florida Business Journal is riding it, using social media and online tactics to attract new readers and boost distribution of its stories.

Speaking at a breakfast presented by Business Wire, Kevin Gale, editor of the South Florida Business Journal, described how his paper is amending its business model to stay afloat in today’s market.

The paper is using Twitter posts, RSS feeds, cooperating with search engines and allowing users to e-mail copies of stories through its Web site in an effort to promote content in the weekly print editions.

While some papers feel Google has hurt the exclusivity of news stories, the South Florida Business Journal cooperates with the search engine to drive traffic to its site, Gale said.  Twitter serves the same purpose through tweets that link users directly to the Journal’s news stories.

“We want our site to be an electronic water cooler,” he said. “It’s become a place where people can gather to read and discuss analytical and insightful news of South Florida businesses.”