Even a small medical office will eventually run into a situation that requires a good PR team, but what happens if your office can’t afford to hire a full-time PR person? Fortunately, media monitoring offers real-time insights that enable you to take a proactive stance on any possible issues, along with helping you effectively manage your reputation. In fact, media monitoring is the key to dealing with sensitive topics, and it can also highlight what areas you need to improve for greater success.
Media Monitoring: Your First Line of PR Defense
Putting a media monitoring system in place allows you to take advantage of strategic PR opportunities. Setting media monitoring up will require a few steps, though.
- Select the Right Monitoring Tool – Choose a proven media monitoring company that offers real-time comprehensive data, sentiment analysis, trends, alerts, and reports.
- Include All Relevant Keywords – Be sure to include the name of your practice, along with any specialty areas, doctor names, local community keywords, and common healthcare terms.
- Create Alerts – Set up immediate alerts for any urgent issues such as negative feedback.
- Pay Attention to Sentiment – Media monitoring also includes a sentiment analysis that makes it easy to find out how the greater community feels about your medical office.
- Respond Promptly to Issues – Immediately handling any issues that arise in a professional manner can help defuse negative feedback. Additionally, leverage any positive feedback to help you gain new patients.
Issues That Media Monitoring Can Address
Media monitoring makes it simple to manage your reputation, measure the impact of your campaigns, and look for PR opportunities. If set up correctly, your media monitoring system can make the difference between floundering or quickly recovering after a major PR scandal. Let’s take a closer look at each individual issue that media monitoring can address.
1- Manages Your Reputation
Your reputation is vitally important, so taking steps to protect it just makes good sense. Through positive sentiment tracking, an early warning system, and a crisis prevention plan, you’ll have the opportunity to put things back on the right track.
For instance, if you receive a negative review or news article, you’ll be instantly alerted so you can mitigate the damage. Another useful thing about online reviews is that you can also track the public’s general sentiments toward your practice, which will let you know if you need to undergo some changes.
Remember: The public will rely on your reputation, rather than reality. Make sure your reputation remains unimpeachable.
2- Seeks Out Strategic PR Opportunities
Targeting publications and journalists who are most likely to provide positive press coverage to your medical office helps ensure good press. To take this even further, though, it’s wise to stay on top of any industry trends that will enable you to position yourself as an expert.
Finally, don’t forget about the importance of community engagement to your office. Your reputation will improve by seeking out initiatives or local events you can become involved in. If you find enough of these opportunities, it’ll sway the community to your side and put you in a better position to deal with a PR crisis.
3- Measures and Analyzes
Media monitoring is one of the best tools for tracking the effectiveness of your PR campaigns. Let’s say that you’ve started a campaign on social media, but you’re unsure if it’s effective. Rather than waiting for results, media monitoring will provide them in real-time, thereby giving you a way to quickly recover if it’s going badly. Plus, media monitoring is able to provide a competitive analysis that can help you identify any potential market gaps.
Change Your Medical Office with Media Monitoring
Running a medical office is busy enough without having to worry about staying on top of public sentiment and campaign effectiveness. Instead, boost your PR efforts easily by choosing media monitoring today. Investing in media monitoring services can have a large impact on how effective a PR strategy is which could impact patient satisfaction and the profit growth rate.
