One of my siblings recently launched a training/coaching web site over at goalgettergirls.com. One of my contributions was to suggest that she also start an automated search with keywords that she thinks are worth tracking. The name of her web site, for example. In so doing, she can be alerted whenever those keywords show up on the internet. As in the opening sentence of this blog post. (As her annoying brother, I plan on asking her in a couple of days if she was alerted to this blog post... just to see if she followed my advice.) ;-)
I've recommended the same thing to other friends and colleagues who run their own business. I mean, it makes sense, right? If you're out and about and you're visible to your customers and clients -- as you should be -- I imagine you're making some kind of an impression. Depending on the effectiveness of your campaigns, how you network, where you add your voice, or the quality of your customer touch points, I further imagine your hope is that folks will remember you. And if that impression is strong enough, they'll write about you. Good or bad, if they write something, wouldn't you want to know?
So, if you've never googled your name, for example, I'd recommend you try it. It's an interesting experience. Now, certainly, if you remember to, you can go in and Google yourself every couple of weeks. But I'd say that if you have any kind of online presence, or, let's say you blog fairly regularly, then it's possible someone may quote you, or comment about your service, or reference something you're affiliated with. When that happens -- good or bad -- an opportunity opens up. You have an opportunity to reinforce a message or mitigate it.
Let's say someone posts a blog article and comments about something you've written, something you did or something or someone you're related to. If favorable, reinforce it with your own comment of a simple "thank you," or an offer of additional information. If it's unfavorable, you have an opportunity to set the record straight.
As fast as things move today, waiting for two weeks to go by before discovering these things with a "manual" search may be too late to be effective. So, an alternative to doing a manual search is to set up an "alert" on a search engine such as Google's. By setting up an alert, you can let the search engine do the work for you.
Simply set it up with keywords you want to look for (hint: include quotes around your name to make sure the engine gets the literal spelling, i.e., "John Smith" or "John Smith Company"). Once the setup is complete, let it run. When it finds something, it'll e-mail you a headline with a link to the site on which those keywords are found.
I'd love to hear comments about other favorite tools some of you use to manage information overload. If I get enough of them, I'll be happy to post a summary in a future post. Or, if you want to blog about this article, go ahead and quote me. It's okay...I'll know. ;-)
