Why you should NOT let lying dogs sleep
Of all the tactics for successful blogging, saying something meaningful to patients is most critical.
The biggest mistake we see of physician bloggers is the avoidance of controversy. Whatever you do, don’t avoid medical controversy; embrace it.
Almost all beginning physician bloggers are disappointed by the initial lack of comments on their blogs. (See part one of “Why aren’t people commenting on my blog?”, July 2, 2010) Getting visitors to post comments on your blog is a very difficult task.
To be effective, a blog either must have piles of traffic already, or the nature of the blog entry has to be on a provocative topic.
If you blog at all, please blog boldly
If you visit a highly popular social-news Web site such as Digg.com, you’ll note that some articles get many more comments than others. An article titled “Obama is a secret Muslim born in Africa” will get wayyy more comments – both pro and con – than one titled “Scientists discover new ways to assemble molecules.”
This is true even if both articles have the same number of visitors. I’m certainly not favoring sensationalistic statements. But I do urge you the physician blogger to respond to sensationalism.
Your job as physician blogger is not to start brush fires on the ‘Net but rather to help patients respond intelligently and responsibly to them.
Your calming voice of scientific reason and accuracy is just the medicine for un-scientific sensationalism. Make sure it is heard.
About Vanguard Communications
Since 1994, Vanguard Communications has provided specialty healthcare marketing with a strategy focused on patient education guaranteed to bring new patients to specialist physicians, physician assistants, nurses and therapists in private, university and hospital practices. Through its MedMarketLink program, Vanguard combines the disciplines of online and offline PR, strategic marketing and information technology for healthcare providers coast to coast.