Twitter is one of the fastest growing websites on the internet today. I would estimate that about for every 10 website development clients I work with, at least 8 ask me about Twitter, and how to use it to market their website(s).

I was recently asked an interesting question from a family friend of ours who is a doctor. He owns a website on asbestos (closely related to mesothelioma, the highest paying keyword on the internet), and he was thinking about opening a Twitter account for it. He wanted to know how he could use Twitter to link his followers back to him (in hopes they will use him for medical treatment).

There were a few ideas that came to mind right away. The first idea I talked to him about was to create an ‘About Us’ page on his website, and talk about his medical practice and how to contact them. With this idea, Twitter would just be used as a marketing tool for the website that would refer new users to the website. Hopefully, people who read the website and are interested in getting advice or treatment from the people behind it, will click on the ‘About Us’ page and contact them.

Then I took a second look at what I was about to propose to him, and I decided that was way to confusing. I decided that he should buy a domain name for his medical practice using (the name of the medical practice). com or (his name).com, and develop it into a website about him and/or his practice. To get traffic going to this website, he could set up a banner in a prime spot on his mesothelioma website, which would lead them to this new website. Using Twitter, he can provide his followers with links to content on his new website, while still providing them with links to his asbestos website.

The moral of the story is…

This doctor was smart. He knew his intentions for marketing on Twitter. He didn’t want to necessarily drive a lot of traffic to his website on asbestos. He wanted to promote himself in order to get more clients. And I’m not going to say that’s easy to do, because it’s really not. When marketing on Twitter, know your intentions, and what you’re hoping to get out of it. Don’t go into it blind like so many do.

And when your are in a position where you want to bring the content on your Twitter account and/or website all back to you (in hopes to get more clients), remember to either have content about yourself on your website, or create a whole new website, and use Twitter as a marketing tool for both. Make sure with Twitter that you’re using your real name when it asks you to enter your name for your profile. All of the little things count. And most importantly, DO NOT spam your followers with content they would not be interested in. In my example, I would recommend to the doctor to only blog about asbestos and medicine-related topics. People who would be following him wouldn’t be interested in reading about the real estate market going downhill.