How-To Tuesday: Using Google Alerts to Keep Up With PR
Written on July 21, 2009 by Susan Payton
Yet another fun-filled How-To Tuesday for you! Today I want to talk about Google Alerts. I’ll tell you: I get approached by companies all the time offering services that help me keep track of what’s being said about my company online, but nothing beats this free service. You can get email alerts any time mention of your company name, industry keywords, or whatever you want to search for shows up on a website. Take a look.
1. Visit Google Alerts.
2. Enter what you want to search for. Here are some ideas:
- Your company name
- Your name
- industry keywords (internet marketing, social media marketing, public relations for me)
3. Select “comprehensive” to get blogs, news, and websites.
4. Decide how often you want alerts. You can get them as they come if time is of the essence, or once a day or week if you prefer.
5. Assuming you have a Google account, choose the email address you want the alerts sent to.
6. Click “create alert.”
It can’t get simpler. I use Google Alerts to find the publicity I help generate for clients, as well as to see what’s happening in their industries. For example, my client ioSafe makes external hard drives, so I have alerts for major tech blogs talking about hard drives so I can check out the competition. I also use it to see where I, Susan, am showing up. Often it’s an article or blog post I wrote that others are pulling from.
As you can see, Google Alerts is a great tool to help you manage your PR for free.
[...] 1. Start getting Google Alerts. Find out who’s posting what about you, your company and your products. Here’s a simple explanation. [...]