Creating a professional on-line profile is essential in today’s fast paced business world. Posting good content, building an engaged follower base and being valued by your market niche is a great start. It takes some time to get right and you may need some assistance, from reputable social media professionals at least in the early stages.
One of the biggest mistakes brands and companies make, once they get traction with their social media strategy is not engaging with their fans. Almost more important is not being at least aware of what is being said about you on-line and responding decisively when appropriate.
There are plenty of tools available from free to hundreds of dollars per month and generally you get what you pay for. One exception is a free service from Google. Google Alerts is very simple to set up, you can have real time notice whenever new content is indexed about you. It cannot be any cheaper than free, but the value you can derive from real time alerts can be worth thousands of dollars in potential sales or cutting off a negative conversations before they get a life of their own.
Apart from the cost one of my favourite features is the email service from Google Alerts, unlike other dashboards etc like Hootsuite that do track conversations or mentions, you simply set the frequency of email alerts and a list of the newly indexed articles etc are sent to you. Depending on the topic I have alerts set from once per day to immediate. Clearly if the alert term you set is going to receive large numbers to new articles a daily alert will be more appropriate.
You can also narrow the Type of alert you will receive, such as news, blogs, videos, books or everything mentioned. Regions, locations and languages can also be chosen. Personally I leave them set all everything mentioned.
To set up your alerts just click on this link Google Alerts
Here is the setup screen you will see, simply fill in each section and your alert is up and running. Set up as many as you like to track, you can edit them at anytime or delete any you no longer wish to receive notifications for.
If you already have a Google ID you can also use the “Me on the web” tool. Me on the web let’s you set up alerts for anything relative to you or your business, such as mentions of your email address, phone number, address, or any other personal data. It is just as simple to set up as Google Alerts.
Our on-line reputation is potentially among the most important assets we own. Using these free tools will assist you to know if you are being impersonated, slandered, or hopefully recommended and endorsed. However you choose to use these tools staying informed is keeping you a step ahead and able to respond accordingly to threats or potential sales opportunities by the hours, day or week.