ethnicomm - the blog part I

If you don’t know what Google Alerts are, read the post Use Google Alerts to keep tabs on your brand, your competitors and Pamela Anderson.

Although not as popular, Yahoo has its own version of Google Alerts called, surprisingly enough, Yahoo! Alerts. It does what Google does but seems to be more commercial with the alerts…branded news from AP for example. With the option to get things like horoscope alerts, snowfall alerts and personals alerts, Yahoo Alerts seems geared to the individual user not the entrepreneur, marketer or businessperson. However, you should get alerts from Yahoo as there may be content that might have been missed by Google (ok not bloody likely but you never know). Research shows that Yahoo skews more towards a younger demographic so if you’re interested in the under 25 crowd, you should definitely look into this.

Microsoft offers Windows Live Alerts (aka MSN alerts and .NET alerts). In addition to suffering from an identify crisis, they suffer from a usability crisis. I just checked and it now talks about pushing out info to subscribers like RSS. So why do you need this feature? This thing is just too much work to figure out and since I don’t think Microsoft is putting any energy towards it, I don’t think you or I should either.  Feel free to add a comment if you want to shed some light on Windows Live Alerts.

Back to Google Alerts

photo credit: masochismtango

If you are getting too much extraneous information in your Google Alerts, you can also exclude words from your Google Alert keyword search terms. So when you set up an alert for new “Pamela Anderson pictures” you can exclude those that have “Tommy Lee” in them.

I have a friend that is a high profile financial adviser who has to ensure that any instances of her name are reported back to the compliance officer  [some crazy Finra and SEC requirement that hasn't quite caught up to the 1990's let alone 2008. More on How to Market your Financial Planning Services and Stay Compliant later - click here if you can’t wait to see how hard it is}. She set up a Google Alert for her name but unfortunately, she shares her name with a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, a Provost at a University, a tofu salad chef and a student at University of Toronto! I’m going to advise her to use the Advanced News Search to refine her criteria and then copy and paste the advanced search query into the Google Alerts search box.

Have you used alerts.com or favebot.com? Do you know of other alerts that are worthy of consideration?

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written by Bhupesh \\ tags: alerts.com, favebot, Google, Google Alert, Microsoft, MSN, Pamela Anderson, University of Toronto, Windows Live Alerts, Yahoo

Tommy Lee gets it once a day.

He has his on/off lover and former wife Pamela Anderson on Google Alerts, so he can ask her about stories that break online, even before she’s aware of it!

Google Alerts are “emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms.” Alerts can be sent once a day, as-it-happens or once a week.  You can get alerts on topics, names or search terms that show up in the news, on blogs, on websites, in videos, or in Google discussion Groups.  If you chose the Comprehensive option, it will consolidate the results found in the news, blogs and websites. You can get it as an HTML email or text email and can create up to 1000 alerts. BTW, this is delivered to your in-basket for FREE!

With all the emails and other information coming at you via SMS, IM, Twitters, Facebook updates, Plurks, and RSS feeds, I’m sure you’re wondering why someone would knowingly add yet another information source. There are many reasons to set up an alert but below are the three main ones:

1. Catholic Guilt

You Google yourself but are too embarrassed to admit it. I don’t think the Vatican knows what Googling means but trust me, you won’t go blind doing it…unless you try to do it in the dark.  Seriously, many individuals and businesses need to monitor what is said about them for a variety of reasons: personal and corporate brand management, compliance, consumer feedback and chatter, identify theft, or market research for example. Financial advisers for example should be reporting every instance of their name appearing online…whether they were the providers of the content or not. Better safe than penalized!

2. Competitive Intelligence

You can track trends, competitors and industries. Let’s say you’re a fence manufacturer. A Google Alert on eco-friendly fencing would have told you that TimberWolf now has complete fence kits available at certain Lowe’s stores. An alert on Trex (a competitor) would have shown that some people feel that Trex is less suitable for vertical applications like rails and fences. An alert on Fence, Deck & Rail products (FDR) would have told you the minute a study on this industry was released. You would know that the market for FDR is “likely to continue to correct downward into 2008, but should begin to pick back up thereafter.”

This is good information that can be used as part of your marketing, sales and web strategy.Would you rather let Google do the searching for you 24/7 or do it yourself? What if…gasp…your buyer actually told you about some competitive activity that affected the buyer and your company? This is one tool that can help you with that.

3. Research

You can watch for new videos on a particular topic of interest, like “Make Google Alerts your virtual research assistant.” If you are working with a client you can use alerts to research their customers, their competitors and their competitor’s customers. If you’re a celebrity stalker, you can get the news as you make it happen!

Need to keep up with those old-school suspender wearing, cigar-chomping, name-dropping big boys in the ivory towers that say things like “Hey did you catch the game yesterday? Boy was <insert name of sports celebrity that you could care less about here> sure <insert appropriate expletive(s) here> on the <insert appropriate playing surface here> eh?“Get a leg up on the old fart by using technology!

Now that you know what Google Alerts is and three main reasons to use it (four if you consider tracking info on Pamela Anderson), can you think of a particular use for Google Alerts in your personal or corporate life?  Have you had much success with it in the past? How would it fit into your own marketing, sales and web strategy?

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written by Bhupesh \\ tags: competitive intelligence, financial adviser, Google Alert, identity theft, market research, marketing strategy, Pamela Anderson, TimberWolf, Tommy Lee, Trex