This guy knows what Google Alerts is—and he uses it to monitor his business…do you?

The headline says it all…and as a professional writer that works in online media, you can trust that I’m right on both counts.

Needless to say, I was quite delighted last week when 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin) said that he was one step ahead of a potential disaster with his TV show’s unpredictable star, Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan), because he used Google Alerts:

“I’m aware of it. I have a Google news alert for the phrase ‘Tracy Jordan ridiculous disaster.’”

At first glance, it’s a cute joke that inserts some relevant Internet humor…especially appreciated by writer geeks like me.

But looking deeper into it, it’s not that funny. Jack Donaghy, for all of his personality flaws, is a remarkably focused executive that runs a tight ship where many are after his lofty, powerful and high-paying position.

The fact that he uses Google Alerts (and presumably other means of Web, blog and brand monitoring) to track his company and anticipate problems is fascinating because it’s not only a good idea, but it’s one that we routinely advise and include in our Web 2.0 consulting services.

Top Five Reasons to Use Google Alerts

Why use Google Alerts? Here are five reasons, among many others that exist:

• It’s free. Like with most Google products, it’s an outstanding service with the nice price.

• It’s easy to use. Short of providing a tutorial, it’s really as easy as typing in the words about which you want to be notified. Alerts are then e-mailed to you, with your choice of frequency (such as right away).

• It does what it is supposed to do…which most simply is to give you an alert. There aren’t any additional bells and whistles that require serious contemplation, such as with Google Analytics.

• It’s a bearer of bad news. Nobody wants to hear that their company or its brands or employees are drawing negative attention online. But as we’ve written about with how Web 2.0 applications such as Twitter let you engage customers and critics head-to-head and in real time, being able to know that similar content is hitting the Web and being able to immediately react is a valuable tool.

• It sees what you don’t and probably won’t. Along with things you might hear about—such as negative publicity—it also lets you hear everything else and know who is saying it. This could be anything from a “black hat” SEO link farmer using your name and company’s links to plagiarism of blogs and other proprietary content.

AVID Design is a trusted advisor for all online marketing efforts, including monitoring with Google Analytics, Twitter and more. Contact us for a free assessment and consultation.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Best Practices, Brand Monitoring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.