Surgeons worldwide are concerned about online reputation, and for good reason. A recent study from Digital Assent showed that, for 72% of patients, poor doctor reviews could be a deal-breaker.
In this 1 hour webinar I go beyond “5 stars” to help you understand the array of factors that impact your reputation online. You’ll learn how to proactively cultivate a positive reputation and defend against negative reviews. I’ll share do-it-yourself tips and advice for partnering with your Web vendor to better protect your reputation. Finally, I’ll cover some reputation pitfalls and talk about every doctor’s favorite review site: Yelp.
No time to watch the video? The below outline will give you some actionable steps to owning your online reputation.
Focus on top rankings
- Identify relevant and popular keywords
- Optimize and update your website
- Actively promote your pages, build links and inspire social signals
Extend your reach
- Claim your namespace
- Syndicate content
- Cultivate media placement
- Pay for placement
Cultivate ratings and reviews
- Develop your staff and deserve good ratings
- Select the most visible review sites in your market
- Ask for the review
Make the most of your résumé
- Explain why you deserve the consultation
- Articulate the value of your specialization
- Publish your perspectives
- Highlight media coverage
Consider your response
- Celebrate your supporters
- Be ready to embrace harmless criticism
- Exercise care when addressing negative reviews
- Don’t threaten over negative reviews
- Don’t hide your identity or affiliations
- Don’t post reviews on behalf of patients
Our perception of the risk
- Collecting reviews during patient survey may put you in the role moderator and limit distribution of reviews
- Actively moderating to suppress negative reviews may result in misleading communication
- Syndication of reviews may cause reviews or listings to be suspended and may limit distribution of reviews
Bad reviews happen
- Differentiate service and quality of care complaints
- Classify as critical, deceptive, or crazy
- Get the facts before you act
- Keep your calm – and your ethics – when reacting
Succeed where others fail
- Failing to deserve a good reputation
- Failing to monitor your reputation
- Failing to respond to fans and critics
- Failing to diversify
- Failing in following rules
- Failing to engage
Why doctors hate Yelp
- Cult of “community”
- I’m a doctor, not a restaurant
- Filtering of 5 star reviews
- Ad sales or extortion?
Taking control of your online reputation:
Part 1: Internal Readiness
- Choose a champion and formalize responsibilities
- Monitor your reputation online
- Engage with your supporters
- Cultivate a positive reputation
- Manage reaction to reputation attacks
- Implement an online monitoring solution
- Create a patient feedback loop (and listen)
Part 2: Objective Measures
- Keep your focus on search engine optimization
- Claim and expand “name space”
- Optimize site for variations on name
- Secure all online business listings
- Extend your reach each quarter
- Publish new pages to your site or blog
- Play an active role in social media
- Routinely contribute content to related sites
- Cultivate positive reviews across the Web
Part 3: Subjective Measures
- Improve your personal presentation online
- Engage your fans
- Increase social media interactions (likes and shares)
- Welcome and thank followers and reviewers
- Address reputation challenges productively
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