In order to flourish in the medical community, physicians must be competent, learn the art of attracting new patients, and more importantly ably manage their online reputations.
Physicians must spare time to engage in search engine optimization and online business reputation management on the Internet and particularly social media.
This in turn allows physicians gain more exposure on the Internet, increase the traffic on their websites and attract new patients to their practice. Many doctors, especially those with small practices, engage in SEO – those who do not, obviously fall behind the curve and begin to lose business.
A single annoyed patient can incalculable damage a doctor’s reputation on the internet. So you should constantly monitor to protect and preserve your online reputation. An unblemished record of service is imperative for a physician – if he does not want to lose clients.
There are a plethora of instances where patients are upset simply for having to wait too long in the waiting room. In a matter of minutes, that unhappy patient can leave a negative review that will hurt the physician’s online reputation.
The obvious question is – how can a doctor protect his/her online reputation? You have to take the necessary steps to protect your online reputation by controlling as many lines as possible on Google. This means that if a patient leaves a negative review, then you should ensure that the review may end up on the 4th or lower page of Google search results.
Protecting the online reputation of a doctor can be somewhat intimidating, and you should relentlessly focus on the important task of providing good and prompt medical care.
Many patients have gone to voicing satisfaction or dissatisfaction on social media channels about experiences they’ve had with their physicians. The more you ignore patients’ reviews, the more damage it does to your practice and physician brand.
Apart from the obvious social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, there are several other online rating sites that you should constantly monitor.
You must actively monitor all patient feedback and potential dissatisfaction and create a plan to encourage happy patients to go online and give ratings and feedback to offset any less than stellar ratings.
Identify reputation problems (and implement solutions) before they get out of control and cause irreparable damage.
Remember that negative reviews often rank high on search engines – the best way to combat negative reviews is to avoid them before they happen or manage them before they get out of control.