Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices

Online health information combined with social media channels like Twitter and Facebook has created a new generation of patients. They are empowered. They have a voice in their own care that they never had before. And more are using social media and physician review sites to choose their doctor or medical practice. Given these stakes, you can't afford to leave your online reputation to chance.

Kick off your social media efforts today with Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices, a comprehensive resource not available anywhere else. In addition to unique insights from practicing physician and social media pioneer Kevin Pho, MD, this book offers doctors a step-by-step guide on how to use social media to manage an online reputation. It also provides insider tips on how to respond to online ratings and a guide to work with all of the major physician review sites. Do not let others define you on the web. Take control of your online reputation now!

What the book features:

• Foreword by Robert Wachter, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco
• Why an online reputation is important for doctors
• How patients use social media to find physicians and medical practices
• A step-by-step guide for how practices can brand themselves on major social media platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, blogs) and drive Google traffic through content
• Profiles of the major physician rating sites, including Vitals, Yelp, Healthgrades, RateMDs.com, Angie's List, ZocDoc and Google+ Local
• Tips to protect and manage an online reputation
• How to respond to online reviews
• Online professionalism guidelines and best practices
  

Unlike guides written by professional marketing gurus, this book offers dozens of stories and case studies from the perspective of practicing physicians and engaged patients. Online reputation management advice is often scattered on the web, requiring time and effort to find. This book consolidates this information in a single, handy resource.

Doctors and office managers know they need to get involved with social media but do not know how or where to start. This book allows them to immediately tap into authoritative insight in a calming way, not in an alarmist manner. Instructions on how physicians can proactively create content and harness the power of social media to define an online reputation and provide better care for patients. The practical format allows the reader to pick and choose from the sections most important to their practice.

Kevin Pho is a board-certified internal medicine physician and founder of KevinMD.com, which Forbes called a "must-read health blog." Klout named him the web's top social media influencer in health care and medicine, and CNN named @KevinMD one of its five recommended Twitter health feeds. Transforming his social media presence into a mainstream media voice, he has been interviewed on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and his commentary regularly appears in USA Today, where he is a member of their editorial Board of Contributors, as well as CNN and the New York Times. His opinion pieces highlight the challenges real-world doctors face, ranging from the primary care shortage to the epidemic of physician burnout. Kevin practices primary care in Nashua, NH. He received his medical degree and completed residency at Boston University School of Medicine, and is a member of the New Hampshire Union Leader's 2010 class of New Hampshire's 40 Under Forty.

Susan Gay is a medical publisher and content strategist with over 25 years experience in medical publishing leadership. Known for her foresight and vision in creating ground-breaking publications, she has published several hundred books, journals and multimedia products, many of them market leaders. Her creative imprint can be seen in such pioneering works as the 5-Minute Clinical Consult and the Netter Collection reference works. As Vice President and Publisher at Williams & Wilkins (now Wolters Kluwer Health), Susan was the first clinical publisher to apply branding strategies to a clinical publishing program. Earlier in her career, she was an award-winning editor at Mosby and served as president of the American Medical Publishers Association. Through it all, Susan has had a keen eye toward the forces that shape medical practice. Today, she is focused on the digital future of medicine and all that it means for clinical medicine, medical education and information delivery.