Google Alerts: Who is Talking About You Online?

Google Name Alerts

by Felice Gerwitz

What are People Saying?

You have been online for some time, and now you wonder how you are doing. Is anyone talking about you? Are your products interesting? Does anyone care about your blog, twitter or facebook posts?

Other than asking your friends, your blog readers, or posting a query on your social media pages, it would be difficult to really know. After all, how do you tactfully ask... "Is anyone paying attention to all this great information I'm giving you?"

Going Deep Undercover with a little help from Google:

Google to the rescue. You can set up a range of queries to check the internet to see what people are saying about you and recieve the informaiton via your email address. It is very simple. Go to the following url:  http://www.google.com/alerts Here you can set up the information you want queried. Make sure if you have a common name to include a middle initial or name.

Here is what you will be asked:

Search Terms:
Type:
How Often:
Email Length
Deliver To:

You would type in the search term you would like to find. As for type you can search blogs, news, web, video or groups. I have mine set to "comprehensive" which means all of those items will be searched. As for how often, I set mine to once a week. Options are once a day, or as it happens. For email length you can select up to 20 results or 50 results. For delivery you can use your email address.

Search Terms

You can search as many terms as you would like. If you sell a particular product you can query the name of the product. You can use this to go to a blog post and answer or comment. This allows you the added exposure of posting to blogs where you have good information to offer. Remember you can fine tune your search results to blogs or specific areas such as news. In the meantime when you see your name mentioned when appropriate post a comment. You don't want it to appear that you are spying on the person mentioning your name, but you can use it to your advantage.

Random Views without Purpose

You can get carried away with this, and all online pursuits if you do not have a purpose or focus. Remember to keep your marketing plan in mind. Use this service in the way it is designed, to obtain information that will help you to give great customer support, and fill a need, or learn what your customers really think.

Have you used this service effectively? If so, share your results or tips with us.