Does your practice's online reputation matter?

Absolutely!  It’s one of the first steps to earning trust and building a relationship with new patients. For most new patients, a google search of your practice is their first impression. In fact, a recent Pew Research Center Project study showed that 44% of online adults say they have searched online for information about someone whose care or services they seek in a professional provider, like a doctor, dentist, or chiropractor. 

If you haven’t recently done a search for your practice, yourself, or the names of your key staff or care givers, now might be a good time to do it.

Here's what to do:

* Start your search with Google, Bing, and Yahoo, yelp.com, and Angie's List.

* Document sentiment, practice brand mentions, and patient concerns

* Share feed back with your team 

* Decide follow up strategy as needed 

You can also use some of these free tools to search for your practice and find real time results in social networks, blogs, and forums. 

Remember, its often the patients who never give you feedback that can be the most vocal online. Take some to see what your current reputation is and identify areas for improvement.  

- Sarah