In doing so, you’ll create many little footprints across the web that link your great content with your name. You can share them as guest posts on someone else’s blog. You can post them on Facebook or LinkedIn. You can post them on your own website (which you can create in less than twenty minutes). Without anyone else’s approval or permission, you can start today and write a few blog posts.
You do not need to write a book or even publish manuscript in traditional medical journals (though of course you can, and this carries importance of its own). One of the fastest ways to make new connections and gain recognition for expertise in a specific area is to write about it. I’m also fairly sure that an overlap in keywords (probably about crisis/crew resource management) is how Captain Sully found and followed me on Twitter, which led to a piece in JAMA and some very rewarding (and career boosting) opportunities.ģ. And Nisha comes readily to mind to just about anyone who know anything about physicians and side gigs. Why? Because Nisha’s the one who gets ranked at the top of search engines for this term. I’m fairly certain that if Oprah wanted to do a segment on physician side gigs, she’d be calling Nisha. She has a website, a blog, and a Facebook group with over 20,000 members. She writes about various ways that physicians can earn revenue from passion projects, passive income streams, and so on. I’m simply suggesting that you be mindful to craft the right set of phrases that describe you, and include them deliberately when you describe yourself and your work.Ī great example of this is Nisha Mehta, the queen of physician side gigs. This is authentic and natural because you should be choosing words that do indeed describe what you do. If you’re thinking this is disingenuous or contrived in some way, stop. If you are active on social media, be sure to use your keywords in your posts. Do this in your social media bios, and in any bios you send to anyone else (to introduce you as a speaker, for example). The goal here is to choose a set of keywords and phrases that represent the brand you’ve defined in step one, and sprinkle them liberally throughout any and all descriptions of you and your work. I’m suggesting you adapt the principles of SEO to your daily communications, to make yourself easy to identify and be found for what you do. Certainly, this includes actual digital search engine optimization, but it also includes your CV, the titles of your presentations and papers, and how you talk about what you do. You are likely already being deliberate about what you choose to pursue and hone as your craft. This is much more efficient than hoping people will begin to associate your name with what you do, and connect their own dots about how your various activities reflect a constellation of special skills that are really a unique package. Let people know what that niche is, and do it in a memorable way. Become to “go-to” expert, the “it” person for a particular need or niche. And once you have clarity on what you can bring to the table, focus on doing more of that.
Once you’ve defined these characteristics, you’ll find it much simpler to articulate what exactly you bring to the table. What’s important here is to identify the skills that are uniquely yours: things you love to do but others don’t, things that come easy to you but others find more challenging, and so on. Or you might call it your niche area of expertise. Define your personal (professional) brand. The strategies below aren’t that different from old-fashioned resume “objective” statements and face-to-face networking.ġ. If you are a traditionalist, please keep an open mind.
INDEED ISCRIBE MD PROFESSIONAL
So, how do you raise your professional visibility? Here are five tips for the modern physician leader.
Showing up reliably and giving your best is not enough. It’s been said that 80 percent of success is showing up, but that’s simply not true.