You Need to Know How—or if—People are Talkin’ ‘Bout You Online Back in the ’90s, country music artist Bonnie Raitt didn’t know how right she was when she sang: People are talkin’, talkin’ ’bout people… I hear them whisper, you won’t believe it… Of course, she was talkin’ ’bout love in her song, but believe us when we say that people are talkin’ ’bout more than just love on the internet today. They’re talkin’ ’bout you and your practice. And they’re not whispering…especially if your practice isn’t quite living up to their expectations. They’re sharing their feelings about your practice with anyone who will “listen” on social media pages, review sites and blogs. Here’s the thing: You actually want— and need—people to sing your praises online. This activity will actually help grow your business. Positive reviews and word of mouth are the biggest business builders out there. In almost all instances, people will trust a review or a friend over an advertisement or your website. You’ve got to know what people are sayin’ ’bout you online. It’s time consuming to try to stay on top of this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You simply can’t sit idly by and hope that your patients are happy. You can’t assume that the internet is working in your favor. You can’t presume that your marketing is more effective than your competitors. You have to be proactive in your marketing strategies. Some call it Reputation Management, some call it Reputation Monitoring. Both of these are umbrella terms for a wide variety of tactics, such as: Improving customer experience Exploiting and managing social media Optimizing your online presence 97% of consumers use online media to research products and services—like your elective surgery options—in their local area. That means any online information about you stands a good chance of being a prospect’s “first impression.” Your new business card isn’t made of paper; it’s floating in cyberspace on: Smart Phones Tablets PCs Laptops Your practice is showing up in the form of: Your main website Online business listings Review sites (like Yelp, Angie’s List, RateMD, etc) Social media pages (like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc) YouTube videos But where do you start? There are a few free tools that will help and for those that don’t have the time to monitor, there are services you can employ. Free Tools: Google Alerts is a free system that sends you notifications when new content is added for keywords that you’ve specified. The service scans and pulls information from relevant web pages, blogs, research, or articles within the Google network. Complaint Search Box is also free to use, which will search around 40 sites for negative complaints. Now, here is the caveat. These are free and they work great BUT you have to use them for them to work. You should be monitoring your online reputation daily. Most practices or businesses will do great at doing the search for a week or so, then they get busy and nothing happens. If you fit into this bucket, you should probably look into employing a service to monitor for you. It’s relatively inexpensive and will give you the peace of mind that you are looking for. To learn more about Fast Track Marketing’s Reputation Monitoring program, call Brandi Musgrave (303-731-2634) or schedule a meeting online. Our methods help practices: Become the “go to” practice for your medical specialty, showing patients that they would be crazy to go anywhere else Enhance all of your patient experiences, making their faces light up when they talk about you verbally or online Get listed at the top of online search engines when people type in your keywords, pushing your competitors down the page