How to develop a mission-driven personal brand [PODCAST]

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“When it comes to social media, embrace a micromedia mindset. That means sharing entertaining, informative content that provides value. Think of yourself as the editor of your newspaper. Newspapers include various content: current events, interviews, information and research, op-eds, and more. Some of these are news-driven — like current events and information and research. Some are relationship-driven — like interviews. And some are self-driven — like op-eds.

Jump into social media by sharing content in thirds. Aim for 1/3 news, 1/3 relationships, and 1/3 you. Don’t start building your personal brand with too much focus on you. If you fill your feeds with op-eds, that will be hard for you to sustain, and it will ultimately turn audiences away.

An important outcome of creating a personal brand is that it’s yours. It will go wherever you go. If you’re building a new practice, applying for a new job, jumping into the industry from medical school, or establishing your legacy, your personal brand is the path to take.”

Paige Velasquez Budde is CEO, Zilker Media and can be reached on Twitter @PaigeVelasquez.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “How to develop a mission-driven personal brand.”

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show we have Paige Velasquez Budde. She is the CEO of Zilker Media, and she wrote the KevinMD article “How to develop a mission-driven personal brand.” Paige, welcome to the show.

Paige Velasquez Budde: Hi, Kevin. Thank you so much for having me on.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get to your article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Sure. I had an interesting path getting into marketing in general. While I was attending the University of Texas at Austin, in a roundabout way, I ended up falling in love with the art of storytelling and marketing. That wasn’t even what I sought out to study. One of my first jobs out of college was at a book marketing agency called Shelton Interactive, and we focused mainly on representing more than 30 New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling authors.

During that time at Shelton Interactive, I had the opportunity to work with several physicians and health care professionals who were on their journey of writing and publishing their books. As we worked with these physicians to establish their online presence for their book launches and their personal brands, it was incredible to see the bigger impact that they were able to make, even beyond the book, with so many physicians and so many of their patients.

That agency, which was focused on representing authors, ended up being acquired in 2016. In 2017, the founder of that agency, Rusty Shelton, and several team members from the original Shelton Interactive team started a new agency, which is now Zilker Media. We have had the opportunity to work not only with authors but also with thought leaders, physicians, and companies to really build what we call people-driven brands.

Kevin Pho: Wonderful. One of the themes that comes up consistently in this podcast is storytelling in health care. I’m interested in hearing, from the perspective of a marketer, why is storytelling important in medicine and health care?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Yeah, it’s so important, especially for clinicians who are seeing patients day-to-day. It’s harder to make an impact beyond the people that you’re able to fit within your schedule. If you’re able to tell stories and bring that to life online as well, through different mediums, you broaden your reach and you broaden the impact that you’re able to make. I think that’s what is so powerful: for physicians to focus on looking at themselves as a brand. Many physicians don’t see themselves as a brand, but it’s extremely powerful, the trust that you can build with patients, the trust that you can build with other physicians, and how you can make an impact in the world doing so.

Kevin Pho: So that leads us into your KevinMD article, “How to develop a mission-driven personal brand.” For those who haven’t read the article, can you just walk my audience through it and maybe share the story of why you decided to write it?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Sure. I was passionate to write this article because, as I mentioned before, time and time again we’ve seen the vast impact, beyond the day-to-day of patient care, that physicians can make when they really focus on building that personal brand. It’s really interesting, because most physicians won’t think of themselves as a brand. In fact, many tend to cringe when they hear the words “personal branding,” because they perceive it as either overly self-promotional or as an ego-driven tactic.

But when you think about personal branding for physicians, the way I want you to think about it is with a mission-driven focus. Go into it with the mindset that you have an opportunity to broaden the way that you teach and educate others, whether that’s patients, other physicians, or even the health care system. When you develop that personal brand, it can provide the platform that you need to make an even greater impact with your work.

This is something, Kevin, that you’ve done so well and that you’ve pioneered throughout the years. Every physician that I’ve ever spoken to highly respects your website and wants to contribute to that community. That’s powerful, because that’s a community that you’ve built online. When you think about it long term, building your personal brand can allow you to grow your practice. It can allow you to generate new revenue streams or transition into a new phase of your career, and that path is going to look different for every physician. So I wanted to give practical steps that physicians can take today to start making this transition and thinking of themselves like a brand.

Kevin Pho: Now let’s go into those practical steps. If I’m a practicing physician and I have no brand to speak of, I don’t have an online presence, and I don’t have a website, could you just take me through, step by step, where I should start?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Absolutely. The first place to start is understanding what Google says about you. Ultimately, for physicians, it’s all about owning your first impression online. First impressions are no longer happening when someone calls your clinic or walks into your practice. They’re now happening on the first page of Google, when someone types in your name.

If a patient has referred you, or if an institution is considering hiring you, or even if a journalist is looking for an expert to review, the first thing that they’re going to do is google your name. When you google a physician’s name, the most common first result is typically a link to your institution’s website or your practice website. But the following results on page one of Google are typically those review pages, and we’ve all seen those: Healthgrades, Vitals. Most of these review profiles are not filled out, and that leaves it up to others to control the narrative about you. You can be proactive in positioning yourself as an expert and thought leader in your field with that first impression, so that you’re giving them a reason to pick up the phone and call.

Now, to own that first impression online, you must focus on optimizing your personal website for social media channels. If you’re not ready to focus on building that personal website at the moment, that’s OK. I still recommend going and buying your URL. All you have to do is go to GoDaddy.com and type in your first name and last name, and I also highly recommend including your credentials within that URL, whether that’s MD, PhD, and buy the .com. For most people, this is only going to be a $12 purchase, and it is protection for your personal brand. The way I want you to think about it is that you’re buying a plot of land that you’re going to reserve to build on later.

If you’re not ready to build that website yet, the best way that you can control what populates on page one of Google is to focus on updating your LinkedIn profile. This is a social media channel that’s almost like a mini website, because it holds your digital CV, it holds your professional biography, and it also holds your connections and recommendations. You can also write articles on it, just like a blog, so it holds a lot of weight when it comes to optimizing your name for search. If you’re not ready for the website phase yet, to devote the time and resources, which is OK, you can also just focus on a channel like LinkedIn to do that in the meantime.

When you start to build your platform, remember that the content that you put out doesn’t have to be all on you. That’s one thing that I’ve heard time and time again: It’s a barrier for physicians to join social media, as they’re afraid they don’t have the time or the resources. That’s OK. We understand that the job is incredibly demanding. So when you’re putting out content, whether it’s social media or your blog, start thinking of yourself as the editor of your own newspaper. When you think about newspapers, they include various content. It’s not all op-eds.

So focus on about one-third of your content on news-driven topics, which, right now, of course, are going to be COVID, New Year’s resolutions, and a healthy look at 2021. The other portion of your content is going to be relationship-driven, so, just like we’re doing right now, invite others onto your platform to shine a spotlight on their expertise and give that additional value to your audience. Then you can reserve the smallest amount of your content for what we call you-driven content, those op-eds and opinion pieces.

But I will caution you: If you focus on filling your content with too many of those op-eds or news-driven content, it’s going to be hard to sustain that, and ultimately it might turn your audiences away. The more that you can involve other people, and the more that you can focus on timely news topics that your audience is concerned about, that’s going to be what drives you forward in building your platform.

Kevin Pho: One of the things that you mentioned was the importance of that first page, or even that first selection, on a Google search. A lot of times, as you mentioned, it is taken up by these clinician review sites. I’ve had a lot of doctors create their own pieces of the web, whether it’s a LinkedIn profile or a website, but it still doesn’t quite get up to the level of something that’s already established. What do you suggest physicians do in that case?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Absolutely. Everything with Google takes time, and it’s what we call SEO, which stands for search engine optimization. If you’re creating your own website, that is one of the quickest ways for you to earn a number two or number one spot whenever you search your name. The goal there, though, is to provide consistent content. Starting a blog is the best way to earn quick up the rankings on Google. If you start a blog, the goal is to keep consistent, so really decide how much time you can dedicate. If that’s once a month, I would start out there, make sure that you’re consistent with that, and work on getting up to a frequency that’s either biweekly, which is every other week, or, if you can, weekly.

Now remember, you don’t have to be the one who is solely writing the blog. If you have a practice with other physicians, you can maybe trade off. You can also do interview series, whether that’s a podcast like this, or you could have them write an article or fill out a series of questions that you can post on your website. You can also write a response to new research or studies that are coming out.

If you’re focusing more on social media, this is another great way to own results on page one. You want those social media channels to pull up in those page one results, and so it’s all about frequency, making sure that you’re keeping those up to date. For example, we talked about LinkedIn. LinkedIn also has a posting feature and a blog feature. Again, if monthly is the frequency that you can commit to right now, go ahead and commit to that, but after time, you’ll see those channels start to pull up onto page one of Google.

Kevin Pho: What separates a mission-driven brand from just simple online reputation? What are some specific things that physicians can do to make their content mission-driven?

Paige Velasquez Budde: One exercise that we love to do with physicians is working with them to create their own mission statement. This is a simple one or two sentences. Any time you’re creating any piece of content or you’re doing an interview, you really want to focus on how it connects to that mission. That’s a good radar for everyone to really look at: “OK, how do I continue living my mission out?” Another good way is to involve others as much as possible, so again, it’s not perceived as that “me, me, me,” overly promotional strategy. It’s more of: How can we show light on other experts who are also doing great things in our industry and can add value to your audience?

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Paige Velasquez Budde. She is the CEO of Zilker Media, and she wrote the KevinMD article “How to develop a mission-driven personal brand.” Paige, there are so many social media channels out there, as you know. You mentioned LinkedIn; there’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. A lot of doctors I talk to, when it comes to online reputation, are overwhelmed by the number of choices. What is your approach in terms of suggesting which social media platforms physicians should be on?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Absolutely, and that’s a question I get a lot, because, as you mentioned, physicians get overwhelmed with trying to do all the marketing initiatives at once, and it’s one of the most demanding jobs in the world to have. So one simple piece of advice is understanding that not all marketing initiatives have to be rolled out at once. Really focus on learning one social media channel at a time.

A very popular social media channel that has been utilized over the last couple of years by the health care community has been Twitter, and there are several Twitter chats going on among physicians. It’s also a really good place to build relationships, and I would encourage you not to focus on the number of followers but to focus on the number of digital relationships that you’re building with others. Once you feel comfortable in that environment, maybe shift and add more intention and time to LinkedIn, and start learning that system and really understanding how you can cultivate relationships there as well. So focus on one channel at a time, and make sure that you’re keeping it strategic, in the sense that you’re focused on building those relationships, not the number of followers that you have.

Kevin Pho: When you talk to physicians about building a brand, one of the things that you had mentioned earlier is that you’re going to get a little bit of pushback from some doctors who don’t believe in an online presence and believe that medicine should only be in the exam room. Has that pushback lessened over the years that you’ve been doing this? Are you finding that physicians today are more accepting of and embracing being online?

Paige Velasquez Budde: I believe so, and I believe we’ve seen that trend over the past couple of years, just as social media has emerged. It’s very interesting. There’s a strong community now on Twitter, especially. There are micromedia outlets dedicated to physicians and dedicated to the health care industry that are craving content from physicians, and we really start to see the impact that can make, not only for patients but also for the health care industry, in moving it forward.

Kevin Pho: And my final question, Paige: What is your take-home message that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Paige Velasquez Budde: Absolutely. At the end of the day, it all comes down to focusing on that mission-driven thought leadership to ultimately make that bigger impact. I always love asking physicians, “Why did you enter the health care industry in the first place?” Their answers are always inspiring, so I focus in with them on remembering that mission. Craft that mission statement for yourself, and focus on extending that reach to share it.

We believe so much in the physician voice that we even focused our time at the beginning of COVID, which was March and April, when everything got shut down, specifically on filming a course for physicians to share every tool and strategy that we had to help them amplify their voice and spread their mission. We knew that the communities, especially during this time, that are focused on the front lines battling this pandemic, their voice needs to be heard.

Kevin Pho: Paige, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Paige Velasquez Budde: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kevin.

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