Time is money.

We’ve all heard this expression. In business, our time is at a premium. This means we have to decide where our time is best invested. Given this, is social media a good investment?

For me the answer is a resounding “YES!”

Over the past 9 months our chiropractic clinic has built up a large following of local Twitter users. Through Twitter we are able to stay in the daily consciousness of many people that live in our neighborhood.

Twitter now only takes about 15 minutes out of my day. If I have a 5 minute gap between appointments, I’ll scan recent twitter posts to see if there’s anything I would like to respond to, or I’ll post a link to an interesting health article that I’ve read that day. I’ll do this 3 or 4 times a day. Effortless, no? But whether you are talking time or money, Twitter has an excellent ROI.

Now, I bet I know what many of you are thinking; “Fine, you’ve got lots of followers, but how much business does that give you?” Well, let me tell you, a fair bit. Is it the sole source of my business? No. Is it the main source of my business? No? Would I miss this source of business if it wasn’t there? Yes. Is this source growing? You bet!

Take Advantage of ‘Hyperlocal’ Opportunities

Perhaps the term ‘hyperlocal’ is not familiar to you yet. Rest assured, it is not a chiropractic condition…

Hyperlocal marketing is more than simply marketing to a very narrow geographic location. It’s about marketing to a specific community and focusing on what is important to them right now.

For example, If I were an insurance salesman in a rainy climate, I might use Twitter to tweet a hyperlocal message like “Heavy rains predicted this weekend. Is your flood coverage up to date?”

Or, if I ran a sports bar in Chicago I might tweet “Big Blackhawks game tonight! Beer specials after each goal Chicago scores!” Get the idea?

In fact, here’s a successful example of hyperlocal marketing from my own practice…

Last week we had a huge snow storm in our town. Most businesses that require their customers to visit the business premises HATE snow storms. You slog your way to work only to have nobody come through your doors. Rather than fall into a negative mood, I put Twitter to work.

First I tweeted:

“Yes, we are open today!”

This let our local followers know that they can always rely on us to be there when they need us. I noticed we had a couple of gaps in the schedule so I put Twitter to work again:

“Snow Day Special: No charge consultation, examination and any necessary x-rays for today only! Call 250-585-8866″

This clearly sparked interest in our community because 4 local followers retweeted my post. Within 15 minutes we had a local tweeter booked into see us that day because he had seen our Tweet. Sure, we gave away some of our time, but it was going to be unused anyway. Now we have a new patient. How many other marketing methods can go from concept to purchase in such short time? Not too many…

Have you generated sales via Social Media? Have you tried hyperlocal marketing? Let me know in the comments below.