The dark side of social media

Jan 4, 2010

Editor's note: Richard Geller's column, Marketing Madness, appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.

Caution ... despite what you have heard about how wonderful social media is, social media sites such as Facebook and Yelp are tailor-made to destroy your good name on the Internet and affect your flow of new patients (negatively) for years.

That's right. If you are not careful, they can ruin you online. Simple as that.

There is nothing more upsetting than building your online reputation to match your offline reputation, only to have one fake or untrue review appear stubbornly at the top of Google whenever someone enters your name or your practice name.

Because anyone -- including a competitor -- can write a review about you that is nasty and dishonest. And it's anonymous.

Most important, it's on a "high authority" site, a site that Google and the other search engines such as Bing look at all the time and index at the top. So the negative comments can often appear at the top of a search, while your real Web site or positive reviews will not even appear on Page 1 of the search.

I have seen this happen so many times. A doctor gets going in a practice, and more and more people find her on the Internet. Then, one day, a friend calls and says, "Doc, did you know that someone has said something bad about you on the Internet?" And from there it's sleepless nights and aggravated months trying to get of the bottom of some fake review or some comment by someone you know is not really a patient.

That's the problem in a nutshell: Bad news travels fast on the Internet, thanks to social media. And this can work against you, even if the bad news is wrong.

What you can do about it? Fortunately, there is a way around bad social media comments. What you need to do is fight fire with fire. You must use the same methods that are employed against you.

Here are five tips that will help you fight back and win:

Respond to all negative reviews promptly. Lots of negative reviews get syndicated, so they appear far and wide on other Web sites over a few days or weeks. If you respond quickly, your response will travel with the bad review, and this will go a long way toward neutralizing it. And, most important, once the bad review gets syndicated to a dozen other sites, it's hard to respond to each of these sites.

Google alerts to the rescue. The best course of action is to respond quickly. But how do you know when something bad has been said about you? Google has a great system that e-mails you whenever something is said about you on the Web. Go to www.google.com/alerts, and fill in your name and a new alert with your practice name. This will give you quick notice, via e-mail, so you can visit the offending review and decide what to do about it.

Ask patients to create real, positive reviews. Ask patients to go on Yelp or Facebook and write a positive review about you. A case study. A testimonial. I know this is hard to do, but it's so important. And if you don't do it, you will find very few patients will do it, and you won't have any rebuttals to negative reviews other than your own. You could have your front desk hand out a flyer or card requesting the patient to report their positive experience with you online. This flyer would give some Web site suggestions. The trouble with not doing this is that people with a chip on their shoulder write all the time. But satisfied, happy patients do not. Not unless they are asked. So ask!

Post positive articles with negative keywords in them. This one is tricky but important. You need to go to major social media sites that have "high authority" in Google's eyes and post positive articles about yourself. These articles should have negative keywords in them.

For instance, perhaps a review says that Dr. Geller is a rip-off. I would put together an article titled, "Dr. Richard Geller of McLean, VA, on how to spot a rip-off dentist." Then I'd write the article, as Dr. Geller, explaining how you can make sure your dentist is not a rip-off.

The trick, then, is to get the article posted on high-authority sites that are visible to the search engines. There are several ways to do this, but an easy way is to write about it on an article site like ezinearticles.com or post it on a site such as zimbio.com. You can also post on a forum such as topix.com, a very visible, high-authority site that lets anyone post an article.

This method neutralizes bad reviews because over time your articles will come up on top, rather than the negative reviews. However, this method needs time to build momentum. More articles, and more keywords, build positive online buzz for you. Yes, it's a lot of work. But it's the only thing that actually works over days, months, and years.

Kick back and relax. Let's face it -- you won't ever really conquer the problem. The more successful you are at building your reputation online, the more often something will happen that will start to tarnish it. So follow the above tips, but with some perspective. Are you comfortable, successful, and happy? If so, you're doing something right. Even if someone occasionally tries to stab you in the back online.

For more links and help on social media damage control, visit www.cases4dentists.com/01/05/social-media-damage-control.

The comments and observations expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DrBicuspid.com, nor should they be construed as an endorsement or admonishment of any particular idea, vendor, or organization.