Dominate Your Market, Become a Sought-After Local Expert
The most fundamental truth about business, including the medical profession (especially when speaking of medical clinics), is the fact it’s a never ending competition to excel and succeed!
With that in mind, you must create unique opportunities to draw the limelight to yourself. What if you could create that opportunity on a much larger stage than you imagined? What if you could have access to vast numbers of potential patients?
* It’s a noisy world out there, and your voice must resonate above the clamor and the clatter! Your message must stand out, both in content and applicability; and just as important, your brand must be elevated.
To raise your brand, you must begin to be seen as an expert in your field. A profoundly effective method for developing that authority status is by building relationships with local, regional, and national media sources. Through these relationships, you will begin to develop a mass media footprint (as you start to be featured in magazines, cable programming, and news outlets, etc.).
What we’re about to discuss requires building symbiotic relationships with the media; sharing your knowledge on a huge stage. Moreover, you can use your expertise, to educate a greater swath of the public than just your immediate patient base. You can use your knowledge to add context and perspective to the media’s health conversations.
The most successful doctors develop ways to inject their ideas or perception into monthly or weekly journals, or in breaking news stories, in real-time, to generate media coverage for themselves by tapping into public discourse.
The strategy of targeting breaking news stories is known as content curation. Content curation is the process of gathering published information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Modern technology has created a level playing field—literally, anyone can curate content and improve the overall story—but it still favors players who are observant, quick to react, and skilled at communicating. It's a powerful tool that can be used to inject your professional experiences and enhance the quality of the news.
Curation is powerful but only when executed in real time (it’s almost like being a wildlife photographer, you’re always on edge). It is about taking advantage of opportunities that pop up for a fleeting moment, then disappear. In that instant, if you are shrewd enough to add a new dimension to the story in real time, the news media will write about you.
It is only since the emergence of the real-time web that content curation, on this level, has become possible in a methodical, systematic fashion.
According to noted marketing and sales strategist, David Meerman Scott, author of “News Jacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.”: “We live in a 24/7/354 world, second-by-second news environment, the most prosperous and savvy operators realize there are new ways to generate media attention.
The rules have changed. The traditional PR model—sticking closely to a preset script and campaign timeline—no longer works the way it used to. Public discourse now moves so fast and so dynamically that all it takes is a single afternoon to blast the wheels off someone’s laboriously crafted narrative.
To be effective, you must launch your business ahead of the competition and attract the attention of highly-engaged audiences by taking advantage of breaking news. And you do that by generating attention and growing business in a real-time world.
Our always-on, web-driven world has new rules for competing and growing business. ‘Advance’ planning is out, and agile is in! Those who embrace new ways will be far more successful than those who stay stuck and afraid to change.
Get Quoted -
The objective is to get in the second paragraph and subsequent paragraphs. If you are clever enough to react to breaking news very quickly, providing credible second-paragraph content in a blog post, tweet, or media alert that features the keyword of the moment, you may be rewarded with a bonanza of media attention.”
Mr. Scott says, your job is to spot an angle instantly and get it online as fast as you can. You need to be astute and quick. You MUST operate in real time!
It is important to point out though, that you will be creating a synergistic relationship that benefits both the media and you. 
Top publications, regional and community television and radio, and national publications are always looking for experts to quote when big stories break.
Every day, these news medias need to create high-quality news information. Your goal is to create and establish relationships with those writers, producers, and commentators and provide them help when they have an immediate need. You need to become their ally.
* An obvious example would be if on your local news channel is developing a story on the dangers of beginning summer activities after a sedentary winter. As the anchor begins describing the oral health concerns, they turn for expert testimony from a local Dentist regarding the possible injuries that might be sustained from all the increased physical activities (such as broken or partially dislodged teeth), eating sticky or hard foods at state fairs, broken braces, etc. and the preventive measures people can take as summer approaches.
Another scenario may include your local cable program needing an expert (a dentist) for their ongoing health and wellness segments for their elderly viewers.
Doctors Jennifer Ashton and Dr. Rahul Jandial are both noted experts who have appeared on ABC World News Tonight and KTLA News discussing health related topics on a regular basis. You may also know Doctors Drew Pinsky and Sanjay Gupta, M.D. who are frequent guests in newsrooms, and now in their own shows. All of these doctors are examples of where one’s expert status can lead.
The take away from these examples is that these things don’t just happen randomly; you must form bonds that let the media know that you’re an available, competent, informative, and reliable resource.
You can find media opportunities on two levels: (1) your immediate sphere of business activities (such as your local Association, business affiliations, industry publications, etc.) and local or personal interests and (2) in the wider scope of national or global news. Develop news-monitoring strategies that keep you instantly informed on both levels. To cover the immediate sphere, you will want to monitor media and journalists you may already know, including the influential blogs and trade publications that cover your marketplace.
There are many ways in which you can keep your eyes on available media opportunities. You may do regular Google searches for specific topics and who are addressing them. Or, you may also do a Google alert for particular subjects. Another option would include signing up for sites like Sumo.com to look for genre articles and who’s writing them. LinkedIn also provides an excellent resource for developing relationships with writers, publishers, and editors.
Success is found by creating a comprehensive list of search terms relevant to your business or interests. Again, search for anything relevant: industry terms, competitors, prospects, and products, plus any relevant buzzwords or phrases—every word, or the combination, you can think of is fair game.
You would then make it your priority to follow bloggers, analysts, journalists, and others who cover your specific business target. Start by identifying as many voices and relevant trade journals as you can.
Best of all, if your written voice develops a reputation for serving up informed, insightful, authoritative, articulate, quotable, and timely commentary on the issues in your industry, journalists will learn to seek you out when new issues arise.
Maybe you will never become the next Dr. Oz; but, if you’re interested in networking, promoting your practice, educating the public, engaging with your patients (and those at large), contributing to medical conversations, or developing your brand seek out the media!
From the desk of Claudio Gormaz, co-founder of StevenVonLoren Marketing Strategists, Direct: 951.294.2274, Personal email: gormazca@gmail.com, Amazon Author Profile, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter