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Step 2: What All Is Being Said About You Online?
This process will help you get an idea about what is being discussed regarding your individual
or corporate identity. You’ve already completed Step 1, so you’ve
seen tons of different types of websites. These websites are heavily based on user-generated
content where people leave their feedback on businesses or on individuals in various
ways.
What Google Alerts will help you out with is “nipping things in the bud” in a timely,
effective manner. If someone leaves some particularly “nasty”
feedback about you on a blog comment, Google Alerts will let you know via email.
Or if someone begins trash-talking your business on a local business directory review website
stating all sorts of false claims regarding your employees, you’ll know about it fairly
quickly.
Let’s go through the very easy process of setting up Google Alerts for online reputation
management purposes! Visit Google.com/Alerts
Within the “Search query” form field, enter your business name or personal name
and have that Alert sent to your desired e-mail address.
Input any and all relevant and potentially relevant “key phrases” you used throughout
the Quick Scan process – such as “Santa Rosa auto repair”, “Santa Rosa mechanic”,
“Jerry Doe Smithtown”, “Jerry Doe Smithville College” – and have those Alerts sent
to your desired e-mail as well. Set “Result type” to “Everything”
or set it to only send you Alerts for specific types of new content or media. I’d recommend
having it send you “Everything”.
As for the “How often” form field, I’d recommend setting it to “As-it-happens”
first and foremost. Experiment with the settings in the “How
many” form field depending on your keywords popularity/commonality as well.
Try setting it to send you “All results”, and if it is too much “noise” to weed
through, set it to send you “Only the best results”.
These Google Alert settings can all be managed through a Google account, which I recommend
getting for this purpose. With a Google account, you can also setup
Alerts to be sent to you as feeds that you can read and monitor directly within your
Google Reader account.
This Alerts process in Step 2 of our guide is extremely important because it helps you
identify online reputation management problems and potential ORM problems very quickly.
After all, “Knowing is half the battle”.
Also, try using SocialMention.com (free) and Trackur.com (paid).
Lastly, use Twitter Advanced Search to pick up comments and discussions related to your
business, name, brand, etc. Input your business name, personal name, brand,
and relevant keywords into these tools just as you do with Google Alerts.
When it comes to ORM… What you don’t know CAN hurt you.
And ignorance is CERTAINLY NOT bliss as folks discover ever day when they search Google
for their name, business name, or other relevant key phrases that might have a direct impact
on their quality of life.
If you want to get a good idea of what is being said about you or your business online,
setup an extensive Google Alerts “coverage list” using all sorts of related, relevant
names and key phrases. Identify online reputation issues by using
the specific processes outlined in Step 1 and Step 2, and use the strategies suggested
in Step 3 to take action.