Patients typically have more faith in doctors who receive positive reviews, endorsements and get talked about favorably by other people online – in short they are looking for medical practices with a robust online reputation. One of the Nielson surveys showed that nine out of 10 consumers trust recommendations from other consumers, while only about five in 10 consumers trust content that a marketer creates and posts about their own brand online.

For a medical practice, forging partnerships with local bloggers can be an innovative and highly effective way to promote the practice indirectly online and reach out to new potential clients in the local area. The key lies in identifying who such potential local bloggers may be out there in the Internet space that are writing on topics that match with what the doctor may be offering through their practice.

There has to be a good fit between the practice and the target blog. Potential partnerships can be forged with such bloggers for content sharing, endorsements and building of a long term relationship for mutual benefit. Another way to reach out to potential bloggers online is by using hashtags strategically for the doctor’s social media content. Hashtags enable the building of a community of like-minded people online.

Google+ has emerged as a powerful social media tool to interact and connect with other people with similar interests on the Internet. Google+ Local allows locally based medical practices and other businesses to appear prominently via local searches. The doctor can list the details of his or her practice, upload images and videos, and seek reviews from individual patients, bloggers and other influencers.

This can help connect with a few interested bloggers over a period of time and create useful relationships. Finally, the doctor may provide customized content to targeted bloggers to be published on their blogs. This gives exclusive and highly relevant medical content to the blogger, while creating opportunities for wider exposure for the doctor’s practice.