In 2013 social media is all the rage. Facebook has an estimated 1.1 billion users, Twitter another 500 million, WordPress, 68 million unique blogs, and Reddit has 4.8 billion page views per month! With such a high concentration of people (approx. 6.5 billion) constantly browsing these sites, information is spread very rapidly. Often, that information is nothing more than cute pictures of cats. But every so often, it is actually important—“Greece’s Economy has Collapsed…again; NSA Caught Installing Cameras on Playground; Dr. Frank Enstein Fined for Malpractice.”
People that were previously considering visiting Dr. Enstein now know that they ought to consider another practice because of his recent lawsuit. According to co-authors Kevin Pho and Susan Gay in Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation, 23% of social network users track other’s medical experiences via social media. And I’ve done the math for you. If 23% of the 6.5 billion people that populate the top 5 social media sites abide by this statistic that means that 1.5 billion people track other’s healthcare experiences via social media. But this huge contingent is relatively unmonitored. Doctors are not conscious of their online reputation (at least in a way that they can manage).
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#1 Having Your Own Website
Online websites rating patient satisfaction have grown in prevalence and in popularity in the technological age (zocdoc, vitals, healthgrades, ratemds, drscore, etc.). The increased visibility of these detailed reviews for potential patients browsing the web has great relevance to your reputation and that of your practice and therefore demands engagement. In order to best control the online conversation regarding your practice, the number one defense for protecting your online reputation is having a website. A website with a clean aesthetic design and user-friendly interface best facilitates your voice in the online community and allows potential patients a point of reference besides solely the above mentioned patient satisfaction rating websites.
When addressing reviews from online rating websites, possible constructive responses your practice may benefit from include:
- Preemptively soliciting structured patient feedback in the form of private surveys
- Looking to improve your practice’s functionality by incorporating the informative portions of patients’ observations on your website.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST: Dan Luzarraga is an occasional sketcher and stargazer.
Obviously your first line of defense in coming up on a Google search is to have a well-designed and optimized website, but beyond that very few businesses have realized the power of Google+ and particularly Google+ Local.
Let’s say you’re searching for “West End Pediatrics”. Type in that as a search term and what do you get? –see image below.
Immediate access for some of the most commonly needed information for your potential patients. The impact of this sort of information should not be diminished. Patients expect to have easy access to what they are looking for whether they are on their computer or searching for you on their smart phone. The good thing is, providing this sort of information and getting listed in a Google Local search is easy. So easy that it is a no brainer. And if it’s easy enough to do, why not do it?
Part 2 of 3.
Page Penguin has the honor of working with two exceptional interns this summer as part of the Regis Tech Accelerator.
Jack is a man of many talents. He is an “outside the box” problem solver and analytical thinker. He also wears colorful socks. And does great work while wearing them. He will attend College of the Holy Cross in the Fall and plans to major is Computer Science and Economics.
Dan is a renaissance man. He has an agile mind, great intuition, and amazing recall. So be careful what you say around him. We have never seen him wear colorful socks, but we think given the opportunity, he would. He will attend Princeton University in the fall and plans to major in Chemistry.
POSTED BY Jack Barton AT 07:00 pm
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