LinkedIn: Reputation Management for Hospital Executives
A core consideration in social media is that people interact and do business with people that they feel they know, like and trust. And for hospital executives, medical practitioners and marketing professionals there’s no better online forum than LinkedIn to connect with peers, organizations and ideas as a means to showcase your reputation.
LinkedIn is the business-serious networking platform for doctors and hospital management that can be your cornerstone for individual and organizational reputation management.
The key consideration in making LinkedIn effective is regular attention to detail, and keeping your online presence current, correct and compelling. Think of your LinkedIn page as an investment in personal outreach and interaction with colleagues (as well as prospective patients and others). Other people can’t interact if they can’t find you and don’t know you.
How you present yourself—and who better to do that—is an open doorway to managing your reputation. Here are some of the essential tips to leveraging LinkedIn to the max:
Your professional photo must be professional. Perhaps the most important, and frequently neglected, first impression tool is having a high quality professional photo. Images speak tons more than text, so your professional photo needs to be as good as your professional reputation. Having and using a current executive portrait is a top priority.
Dust off your profile and keep it current. Fortunately, it’s easy to update your bio on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, it’s easily neglected. What people know about you is, to a great extent, what you tell them about your experience, your achievements and your contributions to the professional community. Review and revise your profile regularly.
Creatively toot your own horn, but make it interesting. Organize the summary and content of your page to provide information in an easily readable fashion. The objective is to differentiate in a compelling and creative presentation.
Verify your location and basic contact information. You would be surprised how frequently online information fails to include current and accurate contact particulars. You may or may not want to include phone number (which are highly important in other directories), but address/location, facility/organization, and email address are fundamentals.
Dive into carefully selected Groups. There are close to two million Linkedin Groups that are organized around members’ common interests or industries. But it’s not a large-numbers game. The most effective strategy is to identify those groups that focus on subjects or discussions that closely align with your goals. Limit your groups to a manageable number that matches your available participation time.
Connect. Connect. Connect. Active participation fuels interactivity with peers, thought leaders and professional colleagues. LinkedIn provides easy-to-use tools for locating and inviting friends and associates. To build your base of connectivity, reach out to associates, fellow members of groups and others, with personalized invitations.
LinkedIn is an executive level forum…sort of the social media town car of hospital and healthcare marketing. It’s an excellent tool to manage and extend your online reputation. And for more on this topic, click through to: 10 Easy-to-Do Tips to Getting More Value from LinkedIn.
