How to Use Content to Manage Your Physician Reputation

It’s often said that when it comes to the web, content is king. If that’s true, what does that mean for physicians that want to stake their claim online to attract patients and build their medical practices?

Information about you on the web define your online reputation as a physician. This includes patient reviews, blogs, health grade website profiles, social media updates, images, videos, etc.

While you may not be saying anything online about yourself, others are actively conversing about you - with or without your knowledge. So, how can you manage all this content to ensure that it works in your favor?

These three steps will get you started in managing existing content and creating new, favorable content about you and your practice.

Claim all your profiles on third party websites

There are many online health grading websites and portals, but some that are more important or influential than others. To build their websites, many portals create doctor and practice profiles that may or may not have accurate information.

If this information is incorrect, it becomes a misrepresentation of yourself and your practice. By claiming all your profiles on the major health portals, you can correct misinformation and include additional information that they may have missed. You will also be able to actively monitor these profiles and respond to any patient reviews posted on them.

Create more content about yourself to counter that created by others

Third party sites and patients are constantly creating content about you online.  If you don’t do anything, then you are effectively entrusting your online reputation to others.

Instead, you can take control by creating content about yourself that balances out other information. Now, this does not mean that you should create overly-positive content that extols your virtues and overtly praises you and your practice. Rather, create content that offers an objective picture of who you are and what services you offer. If people want to find out about your practice history, for instance, let them hear it in your words on your own website rather than from third parties.

Start a blog

There are blog sites covering every topic imaginable, including medicine. (A blog is basically a website or a section of a website that provides information, commentary or acts as an online journal.) Medical blogging allows physicians, doctors and other medical professionals to share credible information about a medical specialty. It’s also a great way to let the public know that you are an expert in your field of medicine.

Effective blogging also helps build traffic from search engines. When it comes to online searches, people finding your posts will surmise that you are knowledgeable in your field, actively participating in current affairs, and personable enough to warrant a second thought.

Through your blog you can communicate what you stand for as a person and as a practice. You can communicate your ethics, your work standards and more. When someone reads your blog, they will be getting an opportunity to interact with you and get to know you a little better. That content may even convince some readers to become your patients. 

Now that’s effective reputation management!

Content can sink or float your reputation. If you are not building your own presence, someone else is doing it for you.

Use content as part of your overall medical marketing strategy. Don’t leave your reputation in someone else’s hands.