There’s no need to be paranoid about it.
But it is useful to know what others are saying about you and your business.
The “others” might include competitors or your customers/clients.
Well, there’s a way of doing this for free. And have a notice of the mentions sent directly to your email inbox. It’s a great time saver, will increase your efficiency, and there are some other important uses for which you can use it too (eg job searches).
It’s a free tool provided by Google called “Google Alerts”.
Google Alerts
You can simply set up an alert or alerts for particular words or phrases. For example, you might choose your name or the name of your business and create an alert for that phrase. Google will then send you an email every time your chosen phrase(s) appears in Google with a link to the article or source of the mention of your phrase.
You can choose to have these alerts sent to you as they happen, once a day or once a week and there are other filters you can use also.
Google Alerts uses
There are many uses to which you can put this free service. For example you can monitor all mentions of your own business or your industry or your competitors.
It can be a great way to monitor breaking news in your industry or about your favourite band or sports team.
The great thing about it is that you can filter everything that appears on the internet in news, blogs, video and discussions and have all these references fed directly to your email.
Great way to research
You can also use this service to carry out research about your industry, a new product or an idea you may have to start your own business.
The options are endless and you can set up as many alerts as you like.
This is an incredibly efficient and free way to get only the information that you need fed to your inbox and will reduce the amount of time you waste on the internet “surfing” if you use it properly and with discipline.
Here’s the link again to Google Alerts.