Half a century ago, people landed on the Moon, took a walk on its surface, and —most importantly — shared it with the world. Unfortunately, there are still many businesses that do not recognize the important of sharing your accomplishments. While there are some individuals who want to be humble about what they do, if you plan to make a living out of it, this approach is simply no good. You are an expert in your field, and if you depend on acquiring new customers regularly (and who doesn’t?), you need to let the world know about what you do.
Online presence is nowadays the number one issue that kick-starts people’s businesses, or destroys them. It is no longer enough to be an expert physician, an M.D., and to have a well-trained team of nurses and technicians by your side. You need to attract people to your office or clinic, and the best way to do it, hands down, is making yourself known online. But why, you might ask? Here are a few reasons.
Everyone Does It, and so Should You
While this may seem as a trivial argument, it is very substantial if you look at it. There is a lot of competition struggling around you, and if they make themselves known, your potential patients are more likely to visit them, rather than you. The reason for this is merely because they know your competition exists —and they likely know even more about them — and they don’t know anything about you. That is, until you make yourself known. If you are the best physician in your city, you surely don’t want the patients to go to the second or third best one — for more than one reason.
Better Ways to Listen and respond
Your online presence makes it easy for your patients to leave various kinds of feedback to you. If you have a social media profile, or a blog, not only can your patients let you know what they think, but this feedback will be seen by everyone else as well. This directly affects your reputation. Again, you are the best physician out there. Without your online presence, your patient can only tell that to you. With it, you can let them do so on your website or social media profile, and thus let everyone else know just how good you are. Don’t be afraid of bad feedback, though —for every business that works hard and does it’s job right, positive feedback outnumbers the negative one by far. On top of that, various online services will allow you to choose which kind of feedback your visitors will see, thus giving you full control over it.
Letting Everyone Know What You Do
One of the vital parts of online presence, which is usually not covered by the social media, is your ability to demonstrate your skills, your expertise and your dedication to good work. For this, you will usually need a decent website or at least a blog (although nothing is preventing you from connecting it to your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter profile). No more leaflets, pamphlets or other annoying advertisements all around – let your online presence speak for itself. A website or a blog lets you describe all your services in the utmost detail — which you should do without any limitations. As soon as your office or clinic gets heard of on the social media, interested patients will surely want to visit your website to see what exactly you offer. With such an approach, you are letting them see exactly what they want to see, and when they want it. And once they really need your services, they are very likely to remember you —or recommend you to their friends.
If we could boil everything down to one word, it would be reputation. Now, more than ever, people are spending their time online, socializing with their friends and acquaintances, as well as searching and browsing for all kinds of services — including medical ones. You should make yourself known in this field, as it will ensure you the freedom to show off everything you can do, while giving them the freedom to see it when they are really interested in it.