feature // marketing
by Jeffrey Behan
Ten seconds! That’s how long it takes someone to post a comment online. Two seconds! That’s how long it can take for that post to go out to hundreds – even thousands – of people. After that it has the half-life of plutonium and pops up faster than a whack-a-mole every time someone searches for information about you on the Web. That’s the world we live in – a world where the consumer is in charge and every person you interact with has the power to build or tear down your brand. That’s why it’s more important than ever to proactively manage your online reputation. Gone are the days when a company could tightly control what is said about it. We now live in a world where everyone has the power to publish and there is no editor checking content for accuracy or truthfulness. The general consensus of Webmasters at Google, Yelp and other online review sites
appears to be that the truth will win out. In other words, if you do a good job and treat your patients well, it will be reflected in your online reputation. But in reality, one disgruntled parent can change the way you’re perceived if you don’t closely guard your reputation. In fact, it seems that it’s always the negative people who go out of their way to share their opinions. We’ve become what I call a “consumer review society” – a world where the most credible source is still a referral from someone we know, but where now more than 70 percent of us trust opinions from complete strangers posted online. Here are six keys to having a great online reputation. None of them will keep someone with a grudge from publishing negative opinions of you, but together they can work to overpower the occasional post that is, shall we say, less than glowing.
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orthotown.com \\ NOVEMBER 2012
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http://www.orthotown.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Orthotown November 2012