Website reunites African Americans with outdoors

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- If you took your family camping this summer, you may have noticed a lack of diversity at your campground. More than 90 percent of campers are white and African Americans are less likely to go camping than any other race. One group is helping to close the racial divide of the great outdoors.

It is where many childhood memories are made, a family camping trip. But look closely and you might realize there is something missing: African Americans. Rue Mapp of Oakland is trying to change that. She started "Outdoor Afro" three years ago hoping to reunite African Americans with nature. "Outdoor Afro is a social media and in-person community that inspires and celebrates African American connections to nature," she says.

Now, Mapp has a national following. She created an online community for African Americans to share their stories. "There are thousands and thousands of members across various social media platforms. We get about 80,000 eyeballs to our Facebook page and we have about 10,000 people engaging on our website," she says.

Despite those numbers, the National Park Service says just one percent of park visitors across the country is African American. Mapp says that doesn't mean they aren't enjoying nature. Outdoor Afro organizes outings and camping trips like a recent one in Coloma. The idea is to get more African Americans out into nature. "Yes, we do camp, most definitely," Linda McDonald of Berkeley says. McDonald says Outdoor Afro is also helping diminish the stereotype that African Americans just don't camp. "Historically, black people have been a part of nature. From the time they were brought over from the continent, they've been a part of nature, cultivating the ground," she says.

"The stereotype is true and then not true because my wife, she loves it. I don't love it, but I'll do it and I'm sure I will have a great time at the end of it," Larry Austin of San Pablo says.

Many of the campers blame urbanization and segregation for disconnecting their community from the outdoors in the past. But today, they are trying to bridge that gap by reconnecting themselves and introducing a new generation to nature. "I think that it's good to bond with people that look like me and to experience new things and my God, this is great. It's beautiful out here," says David Robinson of San Francisco.

"To be able to have an organization like this, it allows more people to do it because sometimes it can be pricey and outside of peoples' means," Michelle Robinson says.

Outdoor Afro isn't just for families or African Americans for that matter. It's about creating a relationship with nature. "I think a lot of people of color are just not used to it, maybe from their childhood, they never really did a lot of outdoor activities. But I think it's great to connect with other people, to get out there, really connect back with Mother Nature, and I think that's really important not just for people of color, but for everyone," Amara Aidbedion says.

Written and produced by Ken Miguel

(Copyright ©2012 KGO-TV/DT.

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Using Positive Patient Reviews on Your Medical Practice Website

An online search for "reputation management" yields 62 million results, including a dozen paid ads for services.

The paid ads on Google point to the profitability and popularity of reputation management services.

Reputation management in 2012 involves monitoring the online presence of a company. This could mean looking at social networks, discussion forum comments, and generally tracking who’s saying what about your practice.

It also includes the more active function of responding to negative comments, posting content like blog posts, and managing patient reviews.

Actively soliciting reviews and ratings from patients is a vital function of these services. The good news is, you can do this yourself if you make a habit of it.

Whether you hire someone to get patients to review you online or you do it yourself, here are a few ways to further leverage positive reviews from satisfied patients.

1. Post them on your own website

Create a separate page on your practice website for patient comments. You can label the page "Patient Comments" or "What Patients Are Saying."

Whether you get the comments from online or offline sources, make sure you respect the level of privacy or anonymity of the patient’s review.

Some patients put their full name in their review; others leave it totally anonymously.

Use the whole comment, break it up into paragraphs, or just post an excerpt.

2. Ask permission for future use

Before you try the technique in number 1 above, it’s better to get permission from the patient.

Be explicit when you ask!

Ask if you can include their full name, city, state, occupation, and even a picture. You won’t know until you ask.

If patients are genuinely excited about their experience, they don’t mind sharing some or all of these things. Give patients some idea of how the comments will be used — in print ads, online, or in the office.

3. Ask patients for multiple reviews

One of my patients recently posted her comments and reviews on two separate ratings websites.

All I did was ask her to visit an extra site when she left the comments.

Another way to get reviews in multiple locations is to let patients know they can just leave a quick "star" rating, like at Healthgrades.com. This takes a few minutes and doesn’t require writing a paragraph of comments.

4. Mix reviews with patient education

Imagine you’re a patient looking for information on eczema treatments.

You look at a local dermatologist’s website and read patient education articles on the subject.

Wouldn’t it be powerful if you read a testimonial from an eczema patient in the body of the article? Of course!

Try putting excerpts of patient reviews in your patient education articles.

Even if that particular patient had some other problem, it helps patients to see that other people are happy with your office as they’re reading about conditions and problems they have.

5. Let your patient know what’s next

Finally, think of other ways you can get your happy patients involved in promoting your practice.

Patients who leave positive reviews, especially in multiple places, are bona fide raging fans. They are usually willing to spread the word about you in other ways, too.

After they’ve left a review, let them know you may ask them to do a video review in the future, contact them for a media interview, or let other patients call or e-mail them if they have questions.

If you’re just getting started, I’ve written some guidelines on how to pick patients to review and rate your practice.

Find out more about C. Noel Henley and our other Practice Notes bloggers.

View the original article here

Using Positive Patient Reviews on Your Medical Practice Website

An online search for "reputation management" yields 62 million results, including a dozen paid ads for services.

The paid ads on Google point to the profitability and popularity of reputation management services.

Reputation management in 2012 involves monitoring the online presence of a company. This could mean looking at social networks, discussion forum comments, and generally tracking who’s saying what about your practice.

It also includes the more active function of responding to negative comments, posting content like blog posts, and managing patient reviews.

Actively soliciting reviews and ratings from patients is a vital function of these services. The good news is, you can do this yourself if you make a habit of it.

Whether you hire someone to get patients to review you online or you do it yourself, here are a few ways to further leverage positive reviews from satisfied patients.

1. Post them on your own website

Create a separate page on your practice website for patient comments. You can label the page "Patient Comments" or "What Patients Are Saying."

Whether you get the comments from online or offline sources, make sure you respect the level of privacy or anonymity of the patient’s review.

Some patients put their full name in their review; others leave it totally anonymously.

Use the whole comment, break it up into paragraphs, or just post an excerpt.

2. Ask permission for future use

Before you try the technique in number 1 above, it’s better to get permission from the patient.

Be explicit when you ask!

Ask if you can include their full name, city, state, occupation, and even a picture. You won’t know until you ask.

If patients are genuinely excited about their experience, they don’t mind sharing some or all of these things. Give patients some idea of how the comments will be used — in print ads, online, or in the office.

3. Ask patients for multiple reviews

One of my patients recently posted her comments and reviews on two separate ratings websites.

All I did was ask her to visit an extra site when she left the comments.

Another way to get reviews in multiple locations is to let patients know they can just leave a quick "star" rating, like at Healthgrades.com. This takes a few minutes and doesn’t require writing a paragraph of comments.

4. Mix reviews with patient education

Imagine you’re a patient looking for information on eczema treatments.

You look at a local dermatologist’s website and read patient education articles on the subject.

Wouldn’t it be powerful if you read a testimonial from an eczema patient in the body of the article? Of course!

Try putting excerpts of patient reviews in your patient education articles.

Even if that particular patient had some other problem, it helps patients to see that other people are happy with your office as they’re reading about conditions and problems they have.

5. Let your patient know what’s next

Finally, think of other ways you can get your happy patients involved in promoting your practice.

Patients who leave positive reviews, especially in multiple places, are bona fide raging fans. They are usually willing to spread the word about you in other ways, too.

After they’ve left a review, let them know you may ask them to do a video review in the future, contact them for a media interview, or let other patients call or e-mail them if they have questions.

If you’re just getting started, I’ve written some guidelines on how to pick patients to review and rate your practice.

Find out more about C. Noel Henley and our other Practice Notes bloggers.

View the original article here