Using Google To Join In The Conversation
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Keeping track of your brand can be a difficult task. Â With all these on-line, social conversations happening it can be difficult to really know what is being said about you, your company, your products, etc. Â But knowing what is being said about you, your business, your key markets is CRITICAL. As I’ve said before, if you don’t know about these conversations, you can’t join in the conversations. Â And, I guarantee, conversations are happening. Â The only question is – are you going to participate.
So, if we agree that there are conversations happening online (blog posts, product reviews, twitter posts, facebook comments, youTube videos, etc.), the question is “how do I find out about these conversations and join in”?
Well, that a great question and there are a lot of good answers. Â In a previous post (Two Simple Business Uses For Twitter) I described one method – using the Advanced Twitter Search based on location. Â This is a great way to find people who are twittering about you or a topic of interest within a certain distance from you (i.e. Â anyone talking about “antiques” within a 50 mile radius). Â But, what if you want to join in on conversations happening on other mediums? Â What if you want to know about blog posts, web site updates, facebook posts, etc.?
The answer now is Google Alerts! Â Google Alerts are a great way to get regular updates any time Google finds a web page with your search term. Â Using Google Alerts, you could get an e-mail every time Google finds a new web page that mentions the search term you chosen. Â You can choose to get e-mails immediately, and daily or weekly digests (summaries). Â You can also choose to have the results delivered to an RSS feed – my personal favorite. Â Assuming you choose instant e-mail notifications, you would receive an e-mail every time Google finds a new article, blog, video, image, etc. that contains your search term. Â What an awesome way to join in the conversation and help to control your brand.
Here’s the basics of how Google Alerts work:
- Visit www.google.com/alerts and create your Google alert. Â The main screen (once you are logged in – you will have to have a Google account) looks like this:
Simply type in your search terms, select a type (for instance – if you only want to get results from blogs, etc.), select How often, and select where to deliver the information to (you can choose RSS later) - After you click “CREATE ALERT” you’ll be in the manage screen. Â It looks like this:
You can see from this screen shot that I had two Google Alerts set up – both being delivered to an RSS Feed, updated immediately (as-it-happens). Â So, any time the words EH Design (my company) or Eric Hall (my name) appears in a new page in Google, the RSS Feed will get updated. Â I’ll know immediately whenever sometime is talking about these terms. Â Since this time, I’ve added a couple more Google Alerts – basically centered on my around some of my key SEO terms – Fort Wayne Web Design, Fort Wayne E-Commerce, etc.
Here’s what the RSS feed looks like in my browsers (I’m running Apple Safari – so Internet Explorer would look a little different):

- My final step is to Monitor my RSS Feeds in a convenient RSS Feed Reader. Â Since I use an Apple, I monitor my RSS Feeds in my E-Mail program (called, Mail). Â So, just as I would go to Mail to view any no e-mail message, so I go to mail to check if there is a new e-mail message, I also see if there are any new Google Alerts. Â Here’s what it looks like in my Mail program:

Google Alerts – a great way to keep up to date with your own brand, product, search terms.
Want to know more? Have other ideas about? Leave a comment and share your thought. Or, contact EH Design & Consulting today, and we can talk about all the ways Social Media can help your business!
Going Google?
With Microsoft’s SharePoint conference in Las Vegas starting today (Monday, October 19), Google has broadened its Going Google ad campaign.
Not familiar with the campaign? Â It is Google’s ad campaign to push harder into the business world with its enterprise offerings. Â Here’s a short YouTube video Google put out:
If you haven’t been watching Google for a while, then you might have missed what they’ve been doing lately. Â While still owning the majority of search volume online (around 60-65%), Google has begun pushing into other areas as well. Â A few of the key areas that I think any business should consider:
- GMAIL – Google has made some incredible changes to G-mail that can be a HUGE time and cost saver to many businesses. Â Now any domain (yourWebDomain.com) can run it’s own e-mal through Gmail. Â What does this mean? Â It means that you can take advantage of Google’s Anti-Spam features (powered by Postini) – which are some of the absolute best in the business. Â You can also read your e-mail online through the G-Mail interface. Â You can have an assistant send e-mail on the boss’s behalf ( e-mail delegation), and e-mail archiving. Â You get ALL of this without giving up your own domain name. Â This means that you continue to have you e-mail as Joe@YourDomain.com, but the e-mail is routed through the GMail Service. Â The person sending you an e-mail AND the person receiving an e-mail from you all see the Joe@YourDomain.com as the e-mail, but you get all the storage, spam filtering, e-mail archiving / backup, web interface, etc. of Gmail!
Cost: $5 per user per year
Savings: Â This could be a huge savings. Â Companies can stop paying thousands of dollars for expensive spam filters / appliances. Â Also (as you will see below), this cost could be even bigger in that you could COMPLETELY DITCH an Exchange server! Â This could save thousands more every year! - Google Calendar – Google calendar is a powerful, shareable calendaring system. Â And, the best feature is that it can integrate seamlessly with MS Outlook and Apple iCal! Â Â In addition to this, it completely supports multiple users – meaning you can see when other in your organization are busy and schedule meetings with them. Â You can also share your calendar, allowing others to simply view it, edit it, etc. Â Again, this gives everyone all the functions of a typical MS Exchange server at a cost that will save thousands every single year.
Cost: $5 per user per year (this is the same $5 user per year as the above, not in addition)
Savings: Again this could be huge. Â Getting rid of an Exchange server will save any organization thousands of dollars a year. - Google Docs – Â Google has been putting out three very powerful web based programs – Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and PowerPoint programs. Â These programs aren’t as advanced as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Â But, most users don’t use the advanced features in these programs. Â And, again, the cost savings is HUGE! Â All three programs also allow for complete sharing of docs. Â This means you NEVER again have to e-mail a doc to a co-worker. Â You simply share it with him or her and you both edit it together. Â You can see changes made by Co-Worker X and roll back, etc. Â It makes collaboration a snap!
Cost: FREE (although when used with the $5 per user per year, it is a bit simpler to collaborate)
Savings: Well, let’s see with the average cost of MS Office from Amazon running around $325, the cost savings is $325 multiplied by the number of workers who choose to use Google Docs. Â Again, The answer here is THOUSANDS more, potentially! - Google Analytics – Do you have a website? Â Do you know how many visits you get? Â How long people stay on your site? Â Which pages are visited the most? Â All of this data is available for FREE from Google. Â Simply add a few lines of code to the bottom of your website and you can get all the data about your site you could want and MUCH more!
Cost: FREE
Savings: None, unless you are paying for an analytics page now or using some stupid looking hit counter (then you don’t save money, you just save the hassle of having a stupid hit counter on your home page)
These are just four of my favorite Google products right now. There’s a ton more that we could talk about. Â Things like: Google Voice, Google Wave, Google Checkout, Google Wave, etc. Â All of these are available for free and could save companies a ton of money and a lot of time.
Interested? Â Got Questions? Â Leave me a comment or contact us. Â We’d love to talk more with you about how we can help save you money!


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