One of the great tools built into Twitter is Twitter Search. In real time you can search for keywords and find out what people are saying in real time. Goto http://search.twitter.com and enter in the keyword “dentist”. Often times you’ll see a tweets coming from the dentists chair. Or in this case, thanks to @dentalmarketing from the waiting room.
What does this mean for the business of dentistry? As of now, it’s probably not a big deal since the number of twitter users in terms of total population is fairly small, but if you combine Facebook and Twitter you start to get to some fairly high numbers. Just think about how many of your patients show up with either a Blackberry or iPhone? Each of these devices can very easily connect to both Facebook and Twitter and easily share an experience in your chair with their followers in Real Time. Is your office ready to handle the compliments and complaints? Are you ready to engage patients in Real Time if necessary?