Using Google Alerts to Foster Business Relationships
If you’re running a business in 2019 and you’re not using Google alerts in some capacity, you’re missing out on massive opportunities.
Google: they’re everywhere, they might be taking over the world, and they’re the bane of most business owners’ existence. The Google search engine is an incredibly powerful tool, but website admins everywhere have been forced to bend over backward to please the all-knowing and all-powerful search algorithm for some time now.
Between SEO rankings, Google Ads, and Google business ratings, there’s a lot to stay on top of — and failure to stay on top of it could mean certain death for your company.
But we’re not here to lecture you about SEO rankings and how to optimize your Google Ads. We’re here to talk about an aspect of Google that’s a little more upbeat (at least, in the way we’ve been using it).
Let’s talk about Google Alerts.
What IS a Google Alert?
For the uninitiated, Google Alerts is a tool that functions as a sort of on-going Google search for specific keywords or phrases. You can input certain keywords or phrases, and Google will send you an email when it finds new results — such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or scientific research — that match your terms. It’s fully automated and totally free.
As you can imagine, this is a powerful tool for business owners. Traditionally, people have used Google Alerts to keep track of themselves. You can set up a Google Alert for your business and your name to keep track of mentions in the press or ensure that no one is using your business’s name where they’re not supposed to. (Which you really should be doing, if you’re not already!)
The Leverage Team, however, has been using Google Alerts for their clients in a different, more personal way — and it has nothing to do with SEO!
Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to and why it could benefit you and your business.
Setting up Google Alerts to Foster Relationships
What if you could have a directory with all your business relationships — and even people that you don’t yet have a relationship with — that is continuously updated with all of their recent press appearances? With Google Alerts, a little ingenuity, and a helping hand from the Leverage Team, this is all possible.
Here’s how we do it.
You start this task by giving us a list of business contacts. These can be people in your industry or related industries. Maybe you talk to them frequently, maybe not. Maybe you’ve never even talked to them but would like to. Maybe they’re a competitor, a mentor, or just a friend.
The point is that these people are well known enough that they’re appearing on the web semi-regularly, and you’d like to maintain or improve your relationship with them.
Once we have that list, we’ll set up Google alerts for each name. If they ever get mentioned in a newspaper article, magazine, blog, etc. — you’re going to know about it. But you don’t want to be inundated with emails about Jim getting a mention in a Forbes article, do you? Of course you don’t. That’s why we take it a step further.
Instead of getting emails for every press mention, we’ll set up an automation with Zapier that takes those mentions and stores them in a spreadsheet. That way, you can have a repository with all the recent press mentions from your contacts.
Creating Meaningful Connections
See where this is going? Now, the next time you call Jim, you can check your spreadsheet beforehand and be sure to congratulate him on the mention in Forbes. Imagine the shock on his face when he finds out that you — the guy he talked to for ten minutes at a conference last month — somehow found his article and read it! Amazing.
These are the type of genuine connections that are nearly impossible to come by in today’s world of networking. Everyone is so busy that the idea of spending an hour looking around the internet for a mention of your friend is simply ludicrous. But with this Google Alerts setup, you’ll have all the info you need at your fingertips, available whenever you need it.
And if by chance, Google hasn’t found anything on a particular individual, you can always submit a task to the Leverage team to have a human do some quick research for you!
This isn’t the only use-case for Google Alerts, of course. You could set up a similar system to keep tabs on your competitors, stay up to date on certain topics in your industry, or keep track of your business and even your employees. The key is to create a system where you’re not inundated with emails and notifications.
For Leverage Clients:
If you’d like the Leverage BizOps team to set up a similar system for you, simply copy and paste the title below onto your next task and add any other relevant info (including your list of contacts) to the description.
TASK TITLE: Set up Google Alerts Task From Leverage Blog Post
Click here to submit your task now!
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