Successful online monitoring with Google Alerts and RSS

Daniel Johnson, Jr. — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:19:00 +0000

Are you using Google Alerts and RSS feeds to track your company’s presence on the internet? How about competitors?

Since this blog reflects me personally, I choose to omit specific company names. As the disclaimer says, opinions and thoughts expressed here are my own and not of any employer, past or present.

A few months ago I set up some Google Alerts and RSS feeds to track mentions of the company as well as its other web properties, and the names of key management personnel. Also, at the management’s request, I set up some additional alerts for another company against whom the company has taken legal action.

Most of the time I get false positives or results I’m already aware of. Yesterday, however, I saw an article (and several subsequent links to it via Google Alerts/RSS feeds) about that other company and forwarded it to the COO.

I received this email a few minutes ago (emphasis added by me):

Dan,

Your article yesterday on [THE OTHER COMPANY] was great. I shared it with [THE OWNER OF OUR COMPANY] and there was information in that article that our attorney did not know about.

Thank you!

[NAME]
Chief Operating Officer

Rich Palmer recently shared some good thoughts on Google Alerts, too:

For more information, check out the NewPR Wiki: What Should Every Company Be Monitoring? page.

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