Google Alerts
In the Tools for Writers category, I want to make sure that everyone out there knows about Google Alerts. Indeed, as Google moves forward in its plan for world domination, there are quite a few helpful applications it offers its willing subjects (I love Google Earth, for example), and one of them, Google Alerts, is almost indispensable as a marketing tool, a research tool, and a general find-out-what’s-going-on tool.
Google Alerts––still, surprisingly, in beta––sends you notices any time the keywords you’ve chosen get mentioned on the web. You can input your name as a Google Alert, your book title, or your general topic. I have a Google Alert for the word “stepmother,” for example, since I am one and hope someday to write something about it; it’s a great way to do research and accumulate resources.
If you have something specific you’re looking for, no problem. You can put the title of an article, for example, in quotation marks, and that brings in more results.
And it’s a marvelous marketing tool. When you’re sending out articles or press releases, Google Alerts will tell you where they’re being picked up. You can set up alerts for your name, for clients’ names, for various topics, etc., and it helps you see how successful you marketing efforts are. One other way to use Google Alerts in terms of marketing is to respond to reporters who are writing on topics similar to your own. Often if they just did a story on a topic, they might be willing to do a follow-up. It doesn’t always work, but it’s been fairly effective for me.
There are no limits on the number of Google Alerts you can set up, and they’re fairly easy to terminate at the end of a project or when your interest in a given topic wanes.
To try out Google Alerts for yourself, go here and fill in the form. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Tools, Creativity, Technology on June 19th, 2008