If you’re not monitoring what’s being said about your company in cyberspace, you should be. What’s more, it’s easy to put on auto-pilot. Here’s how:
1. Go to Google Alerts.
2. Fill out the phrases you’d like to monitor. This might include your company name, your name, your email address, and your competition. If you want to specify results that match your search term exactly, put quotation marks around your search term. You can also specify that certain matches be eliminated by using a minus sign. For instance, I don’t care to follow the Evergreen Marketing that deals with construction industry, so I can eliminate those matches by entering “Evergreen Marketing” – construction.
3. Specify the type of content you’d like to monitor. Choices include News, Blogs, Web, Video, Groups, and Comprehensive (meaning all the above).
4. Specify the frequency with which you’d like to be notified. Choices are as it happens, daily and weekly.
5. Enter your email address. (Google does not share your email with anyone.)
6. Hit “Create Alert.”
You’ll then receive email notification of any mention of the search terms you specify.
In our next post, I’ll tell you a remarkable story of how one company used Google Alerts to their huge advantage.
