Cosmetic Surgery Times - April 2009 - (Page 6) COSMETIC SURGERY TIMES 6 PowerUser A physician’s opinion is valuable and with Twitter and blogging, you can dynamically update these in real-time, rather than waiting for an article to be published.” — Kevin Pho, M.D. Nashua, N.H. “For me, personally, it adds about two to three hours a day of reading and writing, which, in combination with a multi-primary care practice [and] raising a young family, is certainly a time commitment.” So what’s the return on that time investment? “It expands influence; a lot of my blog topics come up on the first page of Google results when people do searches. I talk a lot about primary care and health reform. I give my take on various news articles. So when people search for those on the Internet, a lot of my articles will come up. It gives you more of a visibility on the Net.” Ms. Korringa puts a number to the return on that time investment. “The Internet is now our third highest referral source after other doctors and friends/family. Many of our new patients are people who have found us on the Internet.” MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE Dr. Pho points out that there is much more to this visibility than “advertising” a practice. Much of it has to do with establishing credibility. “Patients are getting more and more Web savvy. They search for their doctors on the Internet, so having a strong Web presence is a must going forward.” But there’s a bigger issue, and that is control: controlling what information about you and your practice appears on the Web. “Patients are eventually going to find you on the Internet,” whether or not you have actively established your Web presence, Dr. Pho points out. “Go out there and Google yourself. If your name comes up associated with negative articles or comments that someone has written about you, that isn’t going to bode well for you in terms of marketing yourself or your practice.” Ms. Korringa notes this as a potential issue as well. Someone who doesn’t “like you for some reason can create major black PR about you and your office.” But by being proactive in your approach to the Web — with an informative Web site, blogging, Twitter, RSS feeds, and other social media platforms, physicians can take much better control over the information people will find about them online. “By using these various social media tools, you gain a semblance of control so when your name comes up, it’s with the topics and information you want.” Dr. Pho says this is especially true for fields of medicine — such as cosmetic surgery, in which, “Taking a proactive stance on the Web is even more important.” Ms. Korringa feels similarly. “We find that the patients who have visited our Web site, have done Internet research, are more knowledgeable and have a better understanding of the procedures involved. They have seen good reviews about our practice so their trust level is higher.” EDUCATE YOURSELF FIRST Dr. Pho uses Medical Spa MD Sufo A 2,000+ member site for physicians in retail cosmetic medicine with resources, forums, blogs and members-only areas intended for aesthetic physicians and medspa professionals to make better business decisions and grow their practice: www.medicalspamd.com/about-medspa-md Founded by doctors who left the medical affairs division of a pharmaceutical and medical devices company, and with collaboration with physicians from Northwestern University, University of California San Diego and Loma Linda University, Sufo hosts video of innovative procedures, grand rounds, marketing and practice management. The site includes tools to publish your own multimedia articles, share them with colleagues and participate in private discussions, and will also archive content for regional medical societies and specialty conferences for their members at no cost: www.sufo.org Sermo Originally conceived as an adverse event reporting system, the Sermo is open only to U.S.-based M.D.s and D.O.s to post observations and questions about clinical issues and to hear other doctors’ opinions. More of a vertical community than a traditional social network service, the site is used mainly to exchange professional opinions and insights in an anonymous environment, rather than connect to other people and share personal information: www.sermo.com PHOTO: PEN/DIGITAL VISION/YASUHIDE FUMOTO/KEYS/RUBBERBALL/MIKE KEMP/GETTYIMAGES Medical Social Networking Sites Check out these e Symposia Hosted on ModerrnMedicine.com, physician bloggers are drawn from Advanstar Life Science publication advisory boards, with forums in both primary care and specialties — including cosmetic surgery and dermatology: http://blogs.modernmedicine.com RSS readers, including Google Reader, to do his own research, to know what’s out there online. He subscribes to several hundred RSS feeds — services that send him information based on the http://www.medicalspamd.com/about-medspa-md http://www.sufo.org http://www.sermo.com http://www.ModernMedicine.com http://blogs.modernmedicine.com
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