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When you own and operate your medical practice, it’s natural to want people who come in the front door to see the doctor, not Google. But with more patients finding information online than ever before, it's harder than ever for your office to keep its good reputation under wraps until a potential patient takes the time to check you out. The best way to protect your medical practice’s online reputation is to proactively manage it by taking steps now that will pay off later.
Reputation management is something that every business needs in order to succeed in today’s digital age, and especially so if you own a medical practice. It's never been more important for doctors and other health professionals, such as massage therapists or dentists, to put in place strategies now so you can benefit later from initiatives that improve the patient experience inside and outside your office.
This is because it's getting easier for patients and others outside your local community to post and share negative reviews on review sites like Yelp.
What is Reputation Management?
Reputation management is the process of protecting a business’s online reputation from being negatively affected by online reviews and other online content.
Online reputation management is especially important for medical practices because of the number of people who turn to the internet for health information. In fact, more than half of Americans trust online health information as much as or more than information obtained in person, and an estimated 75% of Americans have visited a health site online. Unfortunately, many medical practices suffer from poor online reputations. As a result, fewer patients visit the practice and are happy with the experience. With online reputation management, you can help protect your practice’s online reputation and increase patient volume.
Why is Reputation Management Important?
An online presence is critical for any business and especially so for medical practices where 70% will look for trusted medical reviews, and 80% of patients will look for their care online. In addition, because most people place a high level of trust in online health information, a negative online review or two can have a big impact on your practice's reputation. With an online presence, you can protect your medical practice from additional potential harm to your practice's reputation by providing additional online content to help build your online brand and by engaging with online community members. If you can successfully manage your online reputation, you will have a better chance of attracting new patients and maintaining existing ones.
3 Ways To Build a Positive Online Presence Now
There are many other things you can do on your own to increase that positive presence.
1. Establish an Online Brand Strategy
Creating a consistent brand for your practice is the first step in establishing a solid online presence for it. This calls for clearly displaying how your social media profiles relate to your website and traditional marketing channels. Color palettes, logos, images, and voice consistency are all essential components of this approach. After all, it sometimes takes repeated exposure for a patient to associate a brand with a particular health practice. In other words, you want a potential patient to recognize your medical practice across different platforms and recognize that it is the same business overall.
2. Establish a Blogging Strategy
Develop a regular blogging program that allows you to post content relevant to your practice, your patients, and online community members. With a blog, you may invite partnerships, boost your practice's standing in the eyes of current patients, and adapt your approach to the market as necessary.
Keeping up with social media profiles also boosts your company's perceived openness to the public.
3. Establish a Social Media Presence
The website alone won't be enough to develop meaningful relationships with patients. To reach your target audience, you must go where they already are, which, in the modern era, is almost entirely on social media. Creating a profile or page on a popular social networking site is free of charge, and more people will see your content if you post on it regularly. You may get almost unlimited free promotion if you make material that your most devoted patients will want to post on their own profiles. You may increase your chances of making an appointment by maintaining a social media presence and other online interactions. If you want to interact with your patients and reply to their inquiries and feedback, you may do so through these platforms.
3 Strategies for Improving a Medical Practice’s Reputation
Here are some important things to keep an eye on to make sure you don't lose patients because of how you look online:
1. Optimize Your Online Profile
As with a lot of digital marketing strategies, the first step in managing your reputation is often to take an inventory. What digital profiles, sites, channels, and listings do you have right now, whether you keep them up to date or not? Where do people who use your health care brand go to read and write reviews? After making a list of everything that makes up your digital presence, come up with a review response plan, rank what needs to be updated, and come up with a plan to fix any problems. Make sure to give clear instructions that can be written down and shared with everyone in your organization.
2. Respond to Online Reviews
When you respond to reviews, it shows that you care about your reputation and how your patients feel about you. Try to respond to all negative reviews and as many positive ones as you can. You can do this by giving the reviewer the option to contact you directly to continue the conversation outside the review. Negative reviews can be hard to read, but they give you an opportunity to fix the problem, improve the patient's experience, and even remove their negative review.
3. Ask For Reviews
Do you know what the best way is for your healthcare practice to get more reviews? Just ask your patients. Patients won't mind you asking for feedback so long as you continue to deliver high-quality care. So the next time a patient tells you how great you are over the phone, in an email, or in person, tell them that you would love to have them write a review on your website or Yelp, or anywhere else they visit.
Conclusion
In the digital age, it’s essential to protect your practice's online reputation. With today’s highly accessible information, a single negative review or comment can quickly spread and damage your reputation. Fortunately, there are several ways to protect your online reputation, including improving your online profile and developing an online brand strategy. By taking these steps, you can protect your online reputation and increase your practice's online presence.
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