We all want more visibility and more reach don’t we? What I’ve learned over the years of writing on the web and coaching virtually is that the real key to building a tribe of people who not only read what you write, invest in you, and spread the word about you is to engage them. But how do you engage people who have mentioned you or your business, but you had no idea that they did? How do you reciprocate and further a relationship that you didn’t even know existed?
The best way to do this is by monitoring “mentions” of your name (Bill Gates) or your brand name (Microsoft) on the web. By monitoring, I mean who mentions your name in the News, on websites, and in social media. This will help you get a good idea of your actual “reach” and “footprint” across the web and of course who to thank for the mention and engage further.
Just a quick story…one of the reasons why I think that this topic is so important is because I use to drop the ball on this BIG time. One time there was a reporter from The Washington Post who mentioned my online counseling brand name in an article, and I didn’t know until one day I was doing a random search on the web for my brand name and the piece popped up! This was weeks after the piece had run. Ugh!
That’s the way I use to check on myself– conducting random Google searches which is pretty ineffective. You might be doing that too or you may not even be checking on yourself at all. So that’s why I’m virtually tapping you on your shoulder and urging you to start monitoring your brand. Now that I’m done all the preachy stuff, here’s how you do it…
Old School – Google Alerts (http://Google.com/alerts)
I’ve been doing this for many years and so have most business owners I know on the web. It’s free. It’s easy. And it’s pretty darn accurate.
1. Like all Google tools now, you’ll need to be logged into your Google account to access this, but it’s totally free to use.
2. Click on the alerts link above or go to the tools section of your Google account and look for alerts.
3. You’re going to create two separate alerts. One for your Name and one for your Business/Brand Name.
4. So let’s say you start with your name. Put “Your Name” in the Search query box.
5. Result Type: Everything
6. How often: I like to choose “as it happens”
7. How Many: Choose “all results”. Only the best results is used when you are creating an alert for a more broad topic. Not something specific like your name.
8. Rinse and repeat steps for your business name.
New School – Mention (http://Mention.net)
There’s a new site titled Mention because it does exactly that — monitor your mentions on the web. What’s great about this new tool is that it’s sort of like Google Alerts on steroids.
1. You can view all your mentions in their cool “deck” type platform and you can use this application on everything: online, desktop, IOS (Apple), Android, or using a Chrome browser extension. Sweet right?
2. You can create new alerts or import your existing Google Alerts.
3. Here’s the cool part. Mention will list your “mentions” in the left hand side of their deck and once you’ve clicked on a specific alert, they will show you the actual live page the mention was pulled from on the right hand side.
4. At the top of the deck they give you several options of what to do with your mention: Share it on Facebook, Tweet it, email it, or create another type of task. They also label mentions with a “tone” such as “positive”, “neutral” or “negative”. You have the ability to change the tone of your mention if they get it wrong. Having to DO something with your mention after you’ve seen it is great for engagement.
5. There are lots of filter options with this application that I like as well. I can block certain sites, etc. For example, I wouldn’t want my own tweets where I add my Twitter handle (@LisaAngelettie) counted as a mention. I know that I’m sending those. I only want to see other people’s tweets that mention me.
6. The first 250 mentions is free on Mention every month. Anything above that and you’ll need to pay for one of their low cost monitoring packages. To stay on the free plan, just be very selective about what you choose to monitor and how you choose to monitor it.
If you know that you are going to see all your retweets and shares in Hootsuite for example, there’s no need to replicate monitoring social media in Mention. You can use it strictly for monitoring news outlets and bloggers. Don’t import your broad topic Google Alerts into Mention such as “writing” or “business coaching”. You’ll get way too many results for that.
Last Tip: If you do a lot of commenting on blogs, especially the same blogs, I would add the ones you frequent to the filter list because Mention will bring up every blog you comment on using your name. There’s no need for you to see those in Mention because you actually created the mention yourself by commenting.
How else are you monitoring your brand on the web? Share your tips with us here.
Lisa Angelettie
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Three Ladders Marketing says
Awesome, I haven’t heard of Mention before. Google Alerts is just OK, but I get inundated with irrelevant notifications and eventually stop paying attention. I’ll check out Mention, double cool that it’s free, too!
Lisa Angelettie says
Let me know how it works for you. So far I’m loving it:)
sudheer says
Nice information. I was searching for the same. It helped me alot and saved my time. Thanks alot. informatica online training .