google privay policy changeIf you use any Google products (and how can you avoid it?) then you’ve probably seen the little reminders that Google has been sharing with us since January. Google announced – and gave us plenty of heads-up – that they were changing their privacy policy. If you don’t know what that means, it might cause a twinge of nervousness. If you’ve read about any of the “outrage” around the internet, then you might have become more nervous. And it’s probably because of the idea floating around that:

Google knows everything I’m doing and is watching me and storing all of my information! And now they’ll know even more because of their new privacy policy!!

Well, in case you weren’t aware, Google has always known about you so that’s nothing new. If you typed an email about kidnapping the President of the United States or better recipes for enchiladas, Google picked out certain words in order to serve you relevant ads. It wasn’t necessarily “reading” your email, only looking for search terms so it wouldn’t show you ads for ladies lingerie when you’re a burly truck driver.

And the privacy policy change is simply that Google is consolidating all of it’s 60 to 70 privacy policies on all of its different sites and companies into just a few and they’re now sharing information across sites. The biggest “share” is YouTube. Google search, Gmail, and YouTube were like islands and searches within each of these products were relative only to what you looked at last time.

You might have noticed since last year that more social media and video is appearing on Google search results. When we search for medical terms or look up doctors, we now see posts from blogs and videos from YouTube. With the new policy change, you’ll see a lot more of it. And if you’re a member of Google+, you’ll see content your friends in Circles posted as well. This is Google’s way of unifying search across all platforms and making sure you get the most relevant information.

So what does this have to do with Disappearing Doctors? Prior to last week, the search results were following a similar pattern that they’ve followed for years. But now, with these unified search results, those doctors who have more patient education videos, participate in Google+, and maintain a social presence, are more likely to come out on top. That only leaves one place for those doctors who don’t have a true online strategy – straight to the bottom.

When the web first came about, doctors were reluctant to build a website as it was seen as a niche expense and not that important. No doctor thinks like that today; we know the value of having a website and nobody needs to be convinced to build an online presence and to ensure they’ll get found. But just like before, doctors have been leery of social media and video. And just like before, they’re learning it pays to invest in creating videos of themselves and their practice, as well as maintaining a social presence.

The big difference is that the social presence and videos seem to be a lot more trouble than just build a website and forget about it. The truth is that it is more work. But the rewards are greater – more patients, or better patients. The web – and your website – was the beginning, not the end.

We are in a new world of communication. This affects your marketing, your patient education, and how you operate your business. It requires a very high knowledge of whats going on in the world today, and how to manage it. Unfortunately, many of the so-called experts are just parroting cookie-cutter solutions that just don’t work for doctors. If you aren’t going to invest the time and effort into learning and managing all aspects of online marketing and strategy (and we hope you don’t), you want to partner with someone who can represent your interests and bring you measurable value.

We didn’t go to medical school. You don’t have an extensive background in marketing and online strategy. But together, we make a pretty good team. And that’s the key to success in today’s world.