Reputation management is the proactive monitoring and active engagement in improving the collective online reviews and information about a person or business. In recent years online review sites and social media have become prevalent and influential and it has become essential for a business to actively manage their reputation or risk losing out to competitors who do.
There are some statistics that are driving the need for medical practices and businesses to have reputation management strategies. Some of those reputation management statistics include:
- Over 86% of US adults have used a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo to find information about another person or doctor
- 75% of online US adults have searched their own name in a search engine with almost half saying results about them were not completely positive
- Over 72% of adults have searched online for information about a physician or health information
- A Nielsen Report showed that reviews on sites like Yelp, Google, Healthgrades and Vitals have become a trusted source of information when making decisions to use a company or physician with over 70% of consumers saying they trust what is written on online
Reputation Management Overview
What methods are used to monitor and manage the reputation of a medical practice, physician or business? While strategies can vary based on the industry or current reputation, most reputation management programs include the following.
Reputation Monitoring
Reputation monitoring is the active and ongoing awareness of online reviews about your medical practice or business. Usually due to the fact that there are so many review sites on the internet, a reputation monitoring software product is used that alerts you to new reviews so that a user doesn’t have to go onto the review site every day.
Reputation Repair
Reputation repair is usually conducted by a professional reputation management firm that specializes in your industry. Reputation repair includes the removal (when possible) of negative information from the internet. In most cases information can’t be removed from the internet but it can be pushed down on search engines so that it is less likely to be seen. Reputation repair methodologies usually involve a wide array of strategies including; new relevant content, quality inbound links, micro web sites, press releases and content development.