Online reputation is such a big deal these days and this is not only applicable to big companies with stock value issues or celebrities
. In fact, professionals in most fields need to have and monitor their online reputation. Mostly, in the line of fire are doctors as people tend to go by personal experience when it comes to doctors.
A visit to the doctor by itself is a very personal experience and one tends to go back to the same person depending on how good you felt he/she treated you. A doctor has to be a good people person and maintain good rapport with patients besides treating patients well. Many are the doctors who have been burned by unhappy patients who have gone on tirades on public forums and social networking sites.
Word of mouth today is word of tweets and Facebook posts and before they realise it may find a lot of negative posts high up on google searches done on their name. A busy professional needs to have a solid support of online warriors to keep his good name high on the searches. If you have doubts all you need to do is check up on the trials and travails of Dr.Angus Thompson.
Dr Angus Thompson, a gynaecologist, was stuck in a civil court case filed by his patient who accused him of unethical behaviour during an internal examination. The court case against him for sexually assaulting Bibi Giles collapsed and now the family of the doctor are looking for law reforms to protect doctor reputation from such onslaughts.
Doctors online reputation is a necessity and expert reputation management is the call of the hour. A good number of bogs and articles about the accomplishments of doctors need to be online and also loads of positive feedback and opinions on social networking sites like Twitter is how it is done. Online reputation management is an on-going process and needs to be updated regularly.