Randall Wong, M.D., Author at Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.

Two Factor Authentication | Why You Need it

March 31, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Two factor authentication is NOT a marketing tool, but is a security tool. Two factor authentication (2FA) insures your identity any time you sign in to an account requiring a password. In essence, 2FA is a form of password protection.

Two factor authentication keeps hackers and intruders out of your digital accounts by adding a second step to the login process. In addition to providing a password, 2FA requires a second proof of identity.

There are 3 forms of authentication (proof of identity):

Something you know
Something you have
Something you are

By requiring 2 of the 3 forms of identity, breaking into your email, website, social media accounts becomes virtually impossible, when compared to a 1 step process such as requiring only a password.

Passwords

Passwords are an example of something you know. Passwords, however, can be easily stolen through either:

Keylogger - a form of malware which monitors every keyboard stroke you make
Brute Force - hackers use programs to figure out your passwords by trial and error
Shoulder Surfing - watching your screen "over your shoulder" as you type on your computer or ATM
Corporate Security Breaches
User Negligence - many of us use the same password over and over again. The password of one account is stolen and thieves now have access to your other accounts because all your passwords are the same or closely related

With the addition of a second step requiring additional information, however, passwords are not necessarily obsolete.

Something You Have

The keychain fob, like a cell phone, is unique to the user (everyone has their own FOB or cell phone). This is an example of "something you have." Before the popularity of cell phones, keychain fobs would be issued for additional online security. In addition to a password, the user had to identify themselves by entering a randomly generated passcode which changed every few seconds. The passcode was proof that the fob was in the user's possession.

Instead of fobs, text messages sent to the users cell phone are commonly used as method of employing "something you have." There are now apps for the cell phone which function as authenticators.

Something You Are

Fingerprints, retina scans, iris images, facial recognition, DNA and voice are all forms of biometric information used to prove identity. Biometric information is "something you are" and is unique to each individual.

Examples of this type of authentication are Touch ID and Face ID used by Apple on iPhones where users unlock their personal phones with use of their fingerprint or image of their face.

A disadvantage of using biometric information, however, is that it can not be changed if lost or stolen.

Use two factor authentication (2FA) to safeguard your website and other digital platforms requiring login information. 2FA is becoming very popular due to it's simplicity, ubiquity of cell phones and its' efficacy.

Password managers can help you avoid the pitfall of using the same or similar passwords for all your sites. I personally use one to keep track of the hundreds of personal and customer accounts...by just remembering one unique password!

5 Easy Steps to Optimize YouTube Video

February 26, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Your YouTube videos can be optimized. Optimization allows YouTube to rank them well. Well ranked videos get more views. Simple formula.

Last post we talked about making the videos attractive and viewable. Optimum length and branding with an Intro and Outro.

Today we are going to go over the 5 simple parts of optimizing a video on YouTube:

File Name
Video Title
Description
Thumbnails
Tags

The process of optimization begins just after you've completed the video but before you've uploaded your video file to YouTube.

Optimize the File Name

Before you upload your video file to your YouTube channel (aka YouTube account), rename the file using keywords. For example, if I want to upload a video of retina surgery and optimize the file name, I might rename the file "RetinaSurgery.mp4" (or whatever filet ype you choose, e.g. .mov, etc.)

This is additional information YouTube can index for ranking purposes.

Now upload the file from your computer to YouTube.

Title of the Video

Once uploaded, you want to "edit" the YouTube, by adding additional information about your video. Navigate to the "Info & Settings" tab.

The first space underneath your video is where you can edit your title. Choose a combination of keywords, secondary keywords and intent modifiers.

Keywords and secondary keywords are the words or topics for which you would like to rank. Intent modifiers are words that relate to specific intent: how to, where to, best of, etc. Though these are really generated on the user end, "How to fix a retinal detachment," using these same modifiers in your title will increase SEO because the intent modifiers AND keywords match.

Create a title for your video using a combination of keywords, secondary keywords and intent modifiers.

Write the Description

The description of the video allows you to associate text with your video. Use 200-300 words to describe and summarize the video. Use your keywords in the description to tell YouTube what your video is about (the description is read by both viewer, but indexed by YouTube). The description is akin to writing an article for your blog/web site. In addition to the text, add URLs of your web site and links to other videos on your channel. You'll likely have to type out the URL as you can't add hyperlinks in the description area.

Make sure to include your name, specialty, company/hospital name and some contact information.

Thumbnails

A thumbnail is a tiny picture. YouTube shows thumbnails when listing and suggesting videos to watch. The thumbnail and the title of the video visually draw attention to your video allowing the viewer to decide if the video should be clicked. Just as when selecting a "featured image" for your web site post, the thumbnail should be representative of the content of the video. YouTube creates thumbnails for you or you may create your own and upload yourself. Customized thumbnails can include a relevant image along a text large enough to read quickly.

Boost Your YouTube Rankings and Views

February 20, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

YouTube ranks videos based upon SEO (more in another post) and views. This article is going to focus on ways to improve the total views of your videos to improve your rankings with YouTube.

My clinical YouTube channel just broke 1,ooo,ooo views. Here are some of the tips on how my videos became so popular.

As Google ranks web pages, YouTube ranks video. Traditional SEO is tougher to employ with video, but it doesn't mean that ranking video is more difficult than improving the SEO of a web page. Well ranking videos on YouTube have increased views and SEO.

In short, just as popular movies are characterized by box-office ticket sales, YouTube videos are valued by "views."

3 Parts to Your Video

There are 3 basic parts to a video:

The Intro
Body
The Outro

The Video Intro

The Intro, aka the introduction, is at the start. The video Intro starts the process of brand recognition for your video. Keep your Intro short. The Intro for most of my videos is about 10 seconds. I use some moving graphics mixed with my logo to get your attention, but more importantly to signal to my viewers that these are "my" videos. I also use audio to build on this recognition (akin to a "jingle.")

The Intro allows your viewers to quickly recognize your brand.

The Body

While this varies in length, do your best to keep the video length to about 10 minutes. There are two reasons for keeping the length of your video short and sweet:

Long videos may bore your viewer
Long videos may not be watched completely

If your video can not be edited to 10 minutes or shorter, than consider breaking up your video into several parts. Create a series: Part 1, Part 2, etc.

There is SEO value to keeping the videos short. YouTube keeps track of completed views, that is, instances where the viewer has watched the entire video. Short videos are more likely to be watched until the end compared to longer vids.

The Outro

At the end, simply rerun the Intro, but add a CTA (call to action). In addition to running the same snippet for brand purposes, add your contact information. Your CTA is to "contact us" (hopefully to make an appointment).

Is Your Content Providing Value? | 5 Easy Questions to Ask

February 12, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

As healthcare providers, we provide value to our patients all the time. Every time we make a diagnosis and a treatment plan, we provide tremendous value to our "consumers" and to our community.

Providing value on the Internet, however, seems to be less obvious to us. Perhaps it's because we do not really understand what's valuable.

Here's why value is integral to any marketing strategy and some very easy ways to gauge if our content has value.

Why Value?

There are many reasons why we need to be creating value with our digital marketing. Here are just 3 reasons why:

Build Trust - the only way a patient is going to call and make an appointment is after you have become trusted. Every time a new patients says "I've done my research," they are saying they've vetted you and trust you. No one makes an appointment solely because your website was at the top of a Google search. You have to be on the top and then also develop trust.
Engage - valuable articles/content are interesting to the reader. Ergo, your content makes your article/website/SM platform more engaging. Engaging platforms encourage additional reading/learning and build trust very quickly.
SEO - content which is shareable (links back to your site) give a quick boost to SEO.

5 Easy Questions to Ask

Here's a quick list of questions you might ask about your content.

Does it educate? This is really easy. Educational content is easy for health providers to create. We educate all day and to every patient. Using some of these well rehearsed and frequent topics easily provides value to our readers.
Is it shareable? Would one of your readers consider sharing your content with someone else? Might they tweet or post on their own page? Shareable means valuable.
Can it be fact checked? Most of this is easy for healthcare. Everything we do is based on fact (evidence based medicine) and, therefore, can be easily fact checked. As subject matter experts (authorities), we provide tremendous value to our prospective patients.
Is this interesting? Your content may not be interesting to everyone, but it will sure appeal to those interested in that particular subject. As long as your article/content is interesting to a percentage of your patient population, it's interesting.
Does it solve a problem or answer a question? If your content directly answers a question someone is "Googling," then it's relevant and of value.

You must answer "yes" to only one of these questions. It's easy...and valuable.

Happy New Year! Tips on Marketing for 2019

January 28, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Happy New Year!

Let's set an agenda for your marketing goals for 2019. First, let's set some ground rules. Your marketing objectives should be:

Easy to achieve
Enjoyable
Appreciated and understood

Remember that healthcare and medicine is not comfortable with "marketing." The need for marketing is still poorly understood, but every year more and more of us are beginning to understand that healthcare marketing is necessary because our patients are expecting us to market. Marketing involves teaching our patients about their health and what services we provide.

Easy to Achieve Goals

Establishing goals which are easy to attain avoids disappointment and the feeling of failure. When I lecture, I often plead to the audience that your hope should be to implement something over the course of the next year and not everything. Trying to achieve everything is doomed to failure. Try to implement just one or two things learned.

Enjoyable Marketing Goals

Your goals will vary from group to group and organization to organization.

The larger your organization/group, the more complex your marketing needs and, unfortunately, the more difficulty in making every one "happy." Keep this in mind when planning a strategy.

Choose a strategy which involves or requires skills you possess and enjoy to utilize. For example, if you like to write, write new content. If you do not like to write, create a video (do something you enjoy, not stress over).

Appreciate and Understand

No matter how simple or difficult, why are undertaking this task? What is your goal?

Keeping your focus on this reasoning will keep your marketing plan streamlined and laser focused.

Ideas for 2019

Here are some really, really simple goals for 2019. Some may be more complex and other ideas may be for the practice just starting to understand marketing.

Update Your Copyright - nothing worse to me than having an outdated copyright at the bottom of your website in the footer. An outdated copyright date warns that your practice/organization may be outdated too. At the very least, you aren't interested in keeping an updated website.
Publish New Content - publish one new article to freshen up the content of the site. Remember that only refreshed sites get higher SEO rankings.
New Photos - consider new headshots of the docs and employees. New office photos? New photos can improve your brand and reader engagement.
Newsletter - Consider starting an electronic newsletter. If you are already writing content, your new content can automatically be distributed to your email list in the form of a an electronic newsletter.
Market Internally - you should properly (patient's need to "opt-in") collect email addresses from everyone of your patients. Your electronic newsletter can automatically be distributed to the entire email list to share news of the practice and your great articles.
Update/Claim Review Sites - Facebook, Google Business, Healthgrades, Yelp, WebMD.com and many others already have your business listed on their database. These are places where potential patients can find you. What's more is that these are also places where a patient can leave a review. (BTW - this is also a great way to improve your local SEO.) Don't forget to add your new pics of the docs!
Ask for Reviews - only do this if you are comfortable with the idea of asking your patients to give you a review. We recommend selecting only one or two places where a patient can write a review.
Social Media - start a social media platform. Choose a platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) that your patients commonly use. Most likely it's Facebook. Start only if you are able to keep the content fresh and relevant.
About You - remember that your About page is the second most important page on the website. Rewrite your About page in the point of view of the first person and talk a little bit about who you are as a person. Share some transparency - it's much more relevant and meaningful to your patients than a list of your academic achievements and research prowess.
Answer Reviews - learn to monitor the Internet for all positive and negative reviews. Respond to all reviews in a timely fashion, if nothing else than to thank the author for taking their precious time to recommend you and your practice. If it's a negative review, breath deep, don't engage about right or wrong, but respond positively (better yet, give us an email or ask your partner or office manager to deal with this!)