We don’t know why the Feed Growth article about the use of Google Alerts [1] to monitor your Brand was entitled “Danger, Will Robinson” but we also liked the classic 1960’s American television series Lost in Space so decided to use it as our title !!!!
As well as a couple of bespoke Clippings’ services we use the Google Alerts extensively, as we have made mention before to help us monitor the industry.
The Feed Growth article was pointing out the obvious really but, if you don’t make use of Google Alerts yourself, read below and figure out why you don’t!!!
There’s really no reason that you can’t stay up to date with who’s talking about your brand. You can be on your way in about 15 seconds.
Just create a series of brand related alerts using Google Alerts. Enter your terms (try your most important brands), select what you would like to search, and then choose the frequency of reporting. If you’re looking to stay on top of what bloggers are saying, just choose blogs or the comprehensive alert. For example, I have created an alert for this blog. I receive a notification about fifteen minutes after a new post has been released.
With an alert set for your brand (or just about anything), you can be certain that you’re getting the latest word from the blogosphere. It’s a great way to avoid surprises (and no doubt look smarter than everyone who’s not quite so alert).
Remember that this service works for just about anything that Google indexes. You should think about adding everything from specific SKU’s, product names, or even part numbers, depending on what floats your boat. There are few better and no cheaper ways to track what’s happening on the web related to your business.
We actually don’t find it as accurate as Feed Growth implies – you need to double check many of the references that you get sent – we have in many, many cases received well out of date or incorrect ‘links’ AND if you don’t specify search terms carefully you can get well and truly inundated with useless data.
It’s good to see that Google can get it wrong on occasion too 😉 though I guess they would claim that the service is still Beta.
Feed Growth [2] itself is also well worth subscribing to !!!