Use blogs to manage your healthcare brand

by Andrea J. Simon Physicians seem to be reluctant to manage their reputations online but get very upset when people go online and talk about them. If you aren't going to protect your brand reputation, you open yourself up to "anything goes." For example, I recently was interviewing a successful physician about her practice and how to expand her business when we got deep into a discussion about online reputation management. She was frustrated that people were talking about her and her hospital and she didn't know what to do. Then I interviewed another physician in a different practice who raised a similar worry about how an online meetup group and another Facebook page were talking about him and his practice. His wife actually had to use her Facebook page to counter the negative stories about him. Social media had taken hold, enabling patients and others to manage the physicians' reputations. Think about the problem these two physicians raised. Was it responding to negative press or taking charge and building their brand story that was needed? These physicians, and so many others, had done nothing to build their online presence, cultivate an online community or recognize that the online world is a real community of people talking--often about their doctors. As I listened to these physicians, I realized there was a larger issue here: How to raise awareness among physicians that they must take control of their reputations and manage their "brand" because they are a ...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs