“How is my campaign going?”
“Is my product receiving positive reviews?”
“What are my competitors doing?”
These are only three of many questions marketing and business managers seek answers to every day.
While there are a number of excellent companies that offer media tracking in Australia there is free beta service from Google called “Google Alerts” that lets you set up free online media tracking.
The Google Alerts service is an email alert system that lets you monitor keywords on the Internet. It works by monitoring media sites and emailing you a summary of when and where a keyword has appeared online.
The application of this simple powerful service is endless… especially in the business ecosystem.
To help you start monitoring keywords through Google Alerts we have written a simple 6 step walk through below.
Step 1. Open http://www.google.com/alerts/ in your favorite browser.
Step 2. Enter the search term you wish to monitor in the search terms field located in the Create a Google Alert box.
Step 3. From the Type combo box select the category you would like to monitor. The default option Comprehensive will monitor News, Blogs, Web, Video and Groups. If you wish to just target news sites select that from the drop down. We recommend selecting the Comprehensive, as this will give you the best cross section of results.
Step 4. The How Often combo box lets you select the frequency you would like to receive updates. We recommend selecting “once a day” as the as it happens option can flood your email box and the end of week can include out dated information.
Step 5. The Email length combo sets the number of records the email alert will contain. For users starting out at Gruden recommends selecting 20 records. Once you are comfortable with the system you can change to 50.
Step 6. The last step is entering the email you wish the alert sent to.
Through completing the above 6 steps you can now monitor any keyword you like for free. While this is a simple powerful system it doesn’t replace media tracking services that track demographic penetration, tv, radio etc… but compliments them by allowing you to keep your finger on the pulse each day.
