Do it Yourself Archives - 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!

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!)

3 Reasons to Use Video to Expand Your Following

May 4, 2017 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Video is quickly becoming a preferred medium for the Internet. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Google is the largest. YouTube is a search engine for video.

According to Fortunelords.com, YouTube:

30,000,000 (million) visitors a day watch 5,000,000,000 (billion) videos a day
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
1.3 billion people use YouTube
Mobile YouTube viewing sessions are > 40 minutes

Video has a lot of appeal. Let’s see why you should consider adding video to your website.

Appealing and Practical

Video requires different skills compared to the written article. Watching and listening to a video is easier and more practical than reading an article. Watching and listening is more easily accomplished when driving, riding a subway or etc. It is also easier to do on a larger variety of devices, i.e. it’s far easier to consume a video on a smartphone compared to reading a blogpost.

Because video requires the use of different skills, it appeals to different types of learners – those who prefer watching and listening compared to just reading. This allows you to expand your reach and increase your followers by exposing yourself to a different pool of viewers.

Video is Better

Video is much better for certain subjects than a typical written article. For instance, I upload many surgical videos to my YouTube channel (then embed them on my website). Surgery is much better appreciated visually. Effectively writing about surgery is very difficult and pales in comparison to the visual form.

Visitors can see and hear you with video and is, therefore, much more engaging than a simple article. Video conveys more information about you as a person.

Video Should be Cheap

You do NOT need to use professionals for your videos, in fact, I recommend using your own equipment and production tools. You probably already have everything you need to upload a video to YouTube.

Use a smartphone or computer camera. The most important elements of your video are;

The content – what do you have to say?
Visually engage – your followers can see you
Audio awareness – your visitors can hear you
Transparency – what kind of person are you?

Professionally produced videos take away from your transparency and make you less credible. These are two crucial elements to gaining a visitors trust.

I will share some nice tips and tools in an upcoming post.

All the best,

Randy

Web Hosting | Choosing Your Level of Service

February 16, 2017 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Web hosting plans differ in the level of service provided to maintain the servers needed to keep you website up and running and secure. There are various levels of security, IT support and monitoring each company (such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, Rackspace, Synthesis) will provide.

With respect to services provided, here is a list of various types of hosting you can obtain:

Free
Shared/Self-Hosted
Managed
Dedicated

Free Hosting

This is absolutely free, but not recommended.

Free hosting (Wix, SquareSpace, Blogger, WordPress.com) provides hosting of your website and maintenance of their servers. While attractive, you have no control over your files, have limited ability to rank your website (SEO) and are limited as to the functions you can install on your site.

Shared or Self-Hosting

This is probably the most common package and is what I actually use for most of our customers. It requires a limited of technical know-how, but does not require actual IT experience. You do not need to understand coding.

Every service you need such as monitoring, backup, malware protection, anti-virus scanning is available à la carte. This obviously adds to the cheap monthly fee.

Any website problems you detect will be assisted by customer support, requiring your precious time on the phone.

Managed Hosting

Managed hosting provides all the services you will need to;

Monitor your website
Scan for malware
IT Support
Virus protection
Maintain Storage
Database management
Backup

For a slightly higher monthly fee, this may be the best value. In essence, all the worrying is taken out of your hands, thus allowing you to spend your time growing and developing your website.

Dedicated Hosting

For most of us, this is too much. Unless you are in a position to purchase or lease your own servers and provide IT support, this is an impractical hosting solution.

WordPress Revisited | Is Your Website Build on the Best Platform?

January 19, 2017 by Randall Wong, M.D.

This post mirrors this weeks podcast on Russ and Randy where we discuss the advantages of WordPress.

For many reasons, WordPress.org is absolutely the best platform to use to build your website.

WordPress.org is the world’s most popular CMS sytem. CMS stands for Content Management System and can be best thought of as “blogging software.” There are other popular CMS systems such Joomla or Drupal, but WordPress is the best.

Not WordPress.com

There are two similar products names WordPress: WordPress.org and WordPress.com. They even share the same logo. For the purposes of this post, I am not referring to the “.com” version and when using the term “WordPress,” I’m referring to WordPress.org.

WordPress.com is a completely free blogging system. Suffice it to say that it has too many restrictions, can not add functionality nor can it be optimized compared to the WordPress.org version. You also do not have control over you files (they reside on a server of which you have no control or access).

I do not recommend WordPress.com for any business.

13 Reasons to Use WordPress.org

Best for SEO – this is the best platform which allows you to optimize your site and your content (articles, posts, pages, etc.). It is also coded to be easily and efficiently crawled by the search engines. Google loves WordPress (so I read).
User Friendly – if you can use Microsoft Word, you can use and operate a WordPress.org website. You do NOT need IT experience or even need to know how to code. Keep in mind that this is my preferred platform – that means I have even learned how to use it!
Open Source – this allows multitudes of 3rd party developers to enhance the basic product. WordPress enjoys the largest selection of 3rd party themes, add-ons and plugins. As it is the largest and most popular in the world, the WordPress community is always updating and improving.
Most Popular Platform – as the largest and most popular system, it has millions of users. This translates to unlimited forums and “resources” available to help you when you run into a problem. Chances are high that many have faced the same problem as yours.
Turn-key Design – WordPress themes can be installed or switched out with click. No need for website designers. This flexibility in design, the way your website looks, can save you literally thousands of dollars.
Mobile Responsive – similar to #5, most current WordPress themes are mobile responsive – no need to waste time and money building a mobile responsive site.
Server Based means that you can work on your site from any Internet connection, even your phone.
“Self-Hosted” means that you need to purchase a hosting account (GoDaddy, Bluehost, Hostgator), but it also means you have complete control and ownership of your files.
Free installation – any legitimate hosting company will offer installation for…free.
Versatile – WordPress.org offers the most plugins which means that WordPress is more functional and versatile than any other system. You can even do eCommerce easily!
Best Blogging Software – this was built for blogging, for our purposes, this allows to easily add content.
Sophistication – regardless of the what your needs are, this platform grows with you as your expertise improves. For instance, maybe you are not ready to open up comments or blog. You can easily do it later.
Search Engine Friendly – It is also coded to be easily and efficiently crawled by the search engines. This gives you an SEO edge.

If you have any reasons (for or against) you’d like to add, please comment below.

All the best!