In a recent story, it was brought to light that it is becoming more and more common for doctors to require patients to sign gag orders that will bar them from posting reviews (mainly negative ones) online.  Doctors cite that negative reviews can “unfairly ruin their reputation”.

Of course, you will always have bitter people posting unfair reviews online, it comes with the territory, but I don’t believe that people are choosing a doctor purely based on reviews from sites like RateMDs.com.

Reviews must always be taken with a grain of salt. They are an amazing place to gather information, but certainly not the only information source one should look at. To me, a doctor’s offline word of mouth reputation is more important than online reviews, and is how I have chosen all of my physicians.

What would be the first thing that came into your mind if your doctor asked you to sign a gag order banning you from posting reviews? I would think that he has something to hide and terrified of people saying bad things. He would not be my doctor.

Doctors are no different than any other business when it comes to reviews. They offer a service and depend on loyal customers to be successful. They are not immune from the rules of customer service. Instead of worrying about blocking the negative things being said, address them and make people want to write positive reviews instead.

There has been a lot of talk around our office recently about ethics in word of mouth marketing and what implications unethical practices can carry. Don’t worry, we aren’t trying to launch an unethical campaign, but there have been some instances we’ve seen that have struck a nerve and thrown up the ethics red-flag for us!

The reason social media and word of mouth marketing works is that it is honest and transparent. You can give me 100 more reasons why it works, but I guarantee that if you take away the honesty and transparency of your campaign – it will fail.

Social media is about openness and showing who you really are. That is the power behind it. Sure, you can get ahead (temporarily) by faking love for your brand, but it will catch up with you. People are smart, and will begin to see through it.

This is what sets WOM apart from all other forms of advertising. It is real people discussing your brand openly and honestly. It relies upon real relationships being built. Of course, you as a brand want to foster those relationships as much as possible, but you cannot manufacture them!

I guarantee the effectiveness of social media will die just as fast as it has come into relevance if more brands betray consumers’ trust. Sites like Twitter will become overrun by nothing but corporate identities hocking their products. Taking the real socializing out of social media just makes it media.

To serve as a reminder, here at MGH WOM, we are bound by the WOMMA code of ethics. The essence of this code comes down to the Honesty ROI:

* Honesty of Relationship: You say who you’re speaking for
* Honesty of Opinion: You say what you believe
* Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity