Physicians: Why and How to Stand Out on LinkedIn

I've worked with physicians on business development and managed care contracting and reimbursement since the 1980s. Some have been/are great authorities in their specialty; some with great bedside manners; some entrepreneurial and innovative, excited to do more than treat patients or perform surgery day after day.

Most would have a fantastic profile and strong professional presence on LinkedIn, if only they knew why and how to do it. Few understand the importance of building a presence on LinkedIn, let alone achieving higher prominence and search results on the platform and online as a whole. There's a huge difference between being included in search engine results and ranking higher (more relevancy for the one searching) in search engine returns (SER). So today, I would like to share some insights that may convince you that 2021 is the year you'll focus on business development for your practice and professional "brand".

Search engine returns are driven by relevance to the searcher. That means that to one searcher with a search history you could show up on page two of their search but for a different searcher, you could end up on page eight or nine. This is true even when the two different searchers use exactly the same search parameters or keywords or phrases. While no one dreams or aspires to be listed on pages eight and nine, your relevance online is dynamic. That's why I laugh when marketing firms claim that they can get anyone listed on page one, organically and consistently. If one searches for you by name, possibly. But even then, with LinkedIn and other search engine and platform algorithms as dynamic as they are, a thin presence will usually not get you higher than page two - if you are extremely lucky.

Keywords "stuffed" into a profile was once a strategy. Not so much anymore. Why? Because everyone with whom you compete has the same ones listed in their profiles. Meh! Not compelling, differentiated or exciting. So you may get included only to be a commodity among others with the same words in theirs. What makes you different? What makes you more relevant to the searcher? That takes a little pondering.

The pondering of what makes you more relevant is that which appeals to a certain persona who needs what you offer.

Who is your ideal patient? Who isn't?

Stop here at this point in the article and list 5 areas of specialization (or fewer) and list the qualities of that ideal patient -- their needs, fears, aspirations for their condition and the treatment(s) you offer to them. To the right of your list, make a new column that lists what sets you apart in patients' terms. Words they would use in the vernacular of how they speak about you to friends and family - not how you or a colleague might describe you in professional terms and medical terms or scientific terms. We'll get to how professional colleagues search and relevance in a minute.

Relevance is dynamic. Here's why and how that works.

The biggest factor for where you appear in search results is your relationship to the searcher. So if you are connected or followed on LinkedIn or other platforms, that counts heavily towards your relevance score.

Furthermore, one cannot control or impact anything about a searcher’s prior search history. Not you, not me, not some marketing agency promising first page results. That's just fantasy to believe so. And this prior search history is something Google has been tracking and trending (and selling) for as long as that searcher as used Google.

On LinkedIn, when one searches for an individual, a few things are taken into consideration:

1. Your level of connection to individuals who match the search terms
2. Your level of engagement (likes and other responses to your posts) with said followers and connections when you post posts and articles or other content.
3. Your location may come into play if the searcher put in a location parameter

So in order to rank higher in search returns, you'll need a large LinkedIn network. But that doesn't mean you should indiscriminately grow a largely irrelevant network. I turn down more connection requests than I accept, day after day. I don't want a network of people who are irrelevant to me in their work or philanthropy. I connect with those who I can help or who can help me in a way that I want to be helped. Prospective clients, TPAs, cost containment firms, managed care professionals, physicians, hospital administration, ASC administration, insurance brokers, agents, consultants, and others whom I would like to be found by and peers. I have a network of more than 85,000 physicians and over 60,000 contracting and managed care professionals that I have worked with or trained in 117 countries. I have worked with more than 50,000 hospitals and health systems around the USA and in other countries. I focus my work on:

• healthcare cost containment, price transparency, bundled pricing and contracting under this model
• managed care contracting and negotiating, contract language analysis and price analysis
• concierge medical practice and direct primary care practice planning, startup, launch, and operational and marketing development, including subspecialties in remote patient monitoring and telehealth services
• medical tourism planning, startup, product design, launch, accreditation preparation and business and destination development and national strategies for health tourism
• robotics-assisted orthopaedic surgery service lines planning, marketing and business development, and program expansion
• outpatient surgery and ASC operations and business development strategy

As you read through those bullet points, consider that I have 23 books either internationally published on these topics and how they all interconnect. They play off one another. For each one, the client prospects can be connected at some functional level, and the peer-to-peer connections are also "connectable" and relevant.

Now follow my lead and make your own similar bullet point list. That's what you focus on. That's where your passions lie. How can that be turned into relevance on LinkedIn?

Don't think that your patients will connect with you on LinkedIn, most won't. But peers and colleagues who may refer patients to you will. They will want to know what you think, what you recommend, what's new and exciting in your world, what you've recently learned or discovered, what you published, what you're doing in business that's noteworthy, and so forth. So they connect with you or follow you so that your posts enter their "awareness stream" on LinkedIn. If you and your competitor are both on LinkedIn and you have two thousand connections and a few posts and your competitor has twenty five total connections and followers and no engagement, who will show up first in the searchers' searches?

So on LinkedIn, the reason for being active and findable is very different from other search engines. As a physician on LinkedIn, decide why you want to be on LinkedIn, decide your optimization strategy specifically for LinkedIn, and whom you'll target for connections and who is not relevant to you or your strategy.

If you need help with this, I have very little time available that isn't spoken for unless you are willing to chat early in the morning or after hours. But I will help you sort it all out and help you with coaching to get you on the right path. I can't do it for you because I simply don't have enough hours to offer to do that. But together we can "giterdone". Make 2021 the year you decide to get it done and become more active to set yourself and your practice and your professional brand apart from all the rest.

Call my office and my secretaries will either take a message or connect you to me on the rare chance I am available to take your call. | 800.727.4160 (I'm on mountain time zone.)