Google Alerts: Monitor Media Mentions, Yourself and Your Brand

Google Alert yourself, and your organization. Google Alerts is by far one of the best tools to help monitor all your media mentions and your online reputation. Like most Google products, it's amazingly efficient, and best of all, it's free. Signup here or at https://www.google.com/alerts  

I recently agreed to "a short ten minute" pitch from a company, in which they tried to sell me their media monitoring service for a mere $32,000 a year. It has a couple of features that will organize and create reports that estimate the value of your media mentions, but I was not buying that their unique search engine was better than Google, and I sure wasn't buying anything for 32k a year.

I have used Google Alerts for years with great success, and highly recommend it. As a Public Information Officer for a large school district, I set Google Alerts for our district, all our schools, and key members of our staff. So, instead of having to search the web for media stories and mentions, Google Alerts will send you an email whenever your search terms are found online. Google does the work for you.

It's very easy to signup, and to set the frequency of the emails. I recommend starting with "as-it-happens" so you are immediately notified. You will get some links sent to you that are not relevant, but they are easy to spot and it only takes a few seconds to look at the email and determine if it's something of interest. 

Make sure to make a Google Alert for yourself too, and all they key members of your organization. This is key to being proactive in your communications instead of the dreaded reactive. As soon as something is posted about you, your staff, or organization, you will be notified. The good news is, that most of the Google Alerts I receive are indeed good news. When the alert is negative, at least you are aware of it and can create a timely response if needed. 

Here's a cheat sheet I created if you need help signing up and a little more info on Google Alerts.