The Importance Of Google Alerts

If you haven’t heard of Google Alerts, then keep reading.

If you have but are not using them, you need to be.

Google Alerts are a simple and free way to monitor what’s going on in your industry, what your competition is doing and find out where your customers are. You should also be monitoring your name and business name, that way you know if people are talking about you, your company, and your brand.

Basically, they are updates that you set up in your Google account that keep track of a specific topic/keyword/key phrase anytime it’s mentioned on the web – whether it be a website, blog, in the news, etc.

Part of a strong social media strategy is providing value to your audience. A key piece of the plan is sharing content directly related to your core business. Some of this content should be from your own website articles and blog posts. You should also put effort into sharing the content of others. When it comes to sharing content, business owners often struggle to find content that is related to their business. Google alerts are a great resource to sift through the endless amount of information on the internet so you can then share what is relevant.

Here’s how you can set up Google Alerts:

1. Click here to start setting them up
2. Enter the term or phrase you want to monitor in the create an alert field – if you put quotes around the term or phrase, Google just looks for that particular term or phrase
3. You can either click on Create Alert or click on the down arrow next to show options (recommended)
4. How often – I do at most once a day
5. Sources – I do automatic
6. How many – I do only the best results
7. Deliver to – chose the email you want these alerts delivered to
8. Hit Create Alert

If you find you are getting too many emails in your Inbox, set up a separate folder that these emails can go into. Check with your email provider on how to create a separate folder along with a rule.

The Google Alerts I have for my business:

• “Michelle Arbore Rochester NY”
• “Michelle Arbore Savvy Social Media:
• “Michelle Arbore”
• “Savvy Social Media Michelle Arbore”
• “Savvy Social Media Rochester NY”
• “Savvy Social Media”
• Social Media
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Media Strategy
• Social Media Tips
• Facebook
• Facebook Marketing
• Facebook Strategy
• LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Marketing
• LinkedIn Strategy
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest

In Conclusion….

Setting up Google Alerts not only helps you stay on top of your industry, it can also help you during the blogging process. If you have trouble coming up with things to blog about, setting up Google Alerts can help get your creative juices flowing. Also, if you are looking for articles to share, Google Alerts can help with that to.

In my next blog post, I am going to introduce you to Facebook Ads and the Ads Manager.

Until then, Keep Calm & Love Social Media!