Let’s start with the riddle:
What gets more visibility than your clinic, isn’t even trying to sell anything, and was written in under 280 characters?
Right. A sarcastic tweet from a guy with cancer.
Back in 2009, I told the world to blame my cancer for everything.
And they did.
Parking tickets? Cancer’s fault.
Lost socks? Blame the tumor.
Taco Bell closed early? Let’s all blame Drew.
It spread.
The tweets turned into headlines.
The headlines turned into interviews.
And suddenly, this weird, dark, funny thing became a national conversation.
We didn’t buy ads.
We didn’t pitch journalists.
We just said something real — and made people feel something.
Meanwhile, your clinic is three newsletters deep into “New Location Now Open!” and still wondering why no one’s talking about you.
Let me save you the suspense.
Why You’re Not Getting Press (And Never Will, Unless You Change)
Here’s the problem with most clinics trying to get publicity:
They think press happens because they exist.
But the press doesn’t owe you coverage because you opened a new office.
Or hired a new physician.
Or donated juice boxes to a local school.
That’s not news. That’s Tuesday.
If you want earned media, you have to earn attention.
You have to say something bold. Be something different.
You have to matter to someone other than yourself.
When we launched #BlameDrewsCancer, we weren’t saying, “Please feature us.”
We were saying, “This sucks. Let’s turn it into something weird and maybe useful.”
And the world listened. Because it wasn’t about us — it was about everyone else who needed to laugh at something scary.
Now let’s look at your clinic’s PR strategy:
You emailed a press release with four paragraphs of corporate fluff and one quote from your CEO that reads like it was generated by a compliance department.
The journalist reading it? Deleted it halfway through sentence two.
Digital PR in Healthcare Isn’t About Being Professional. It’s About Being Unforgettable.
You’re not being quoted because you’re not saying anything that matters.
You’re not getting links because your site sounds like every other practice in your city.
You’re not showing up in articles because you’re not contributing to a conversation — you’re reciting a monologue no one asked to hear.
Look, media outlets don’t want a commercial.
They want a story.
They want a hook. A voice. A reason to care.
They want something they know their readers will click, read, and maybe even share.
You could have a brilliant care model and the best doctors in town.
But if your message lands like wet toast, you’re not going anywhere but page 9 of Google.
What We Did Right (That You Probably Won’t)
We didn’t wait for coverage.
We earned it by starting something worth covering. It was about cancer and helping others.
We gave people a way to participate.
We turned grief into gallows humor, into conversation, into headlines.
We were honest, messy, imperfect — and that made it real.
You can’t fake that with a stock photo of a handshake.
You want real PR? Start by saying something real.
Start by doing something people will remember.
Start by being a little uncomfortable.
Because comfort is invisible.
And invisibility never got anyone on the front page.
Final Diagnosis: If No One’s Talking About You, Maybe It’s You
Your clinic doesn’t have a “visibility” problem.
You have a relevance problem.
A voice problem.
A we’ve-been-saying-the-same-thing-since-2014-and-no-one-cared-then-either problem.
Want to show up in the media?
Start by showing up in the conversation.
Take a stance. Tell a story. Create something that isn’t boring.
Or keep writing those press releases.
Keep waiting for the “local health section” to notice.
Keep posting “Meet Our Team!” selfies and wondering why no one’s engaging.
If all else fails, blame me.
We’ve done it before.