They’re Talking About You

by Aaron on July 27, 2009

You might not realize it, but they’re talking about you. Yes, you. You and your business. You and your photos.

It’s so easy for people to publish content online that it’s inevitable that your friends, clients, and family are probably talking about your photography on their blogs, Twitter, Flickr, and so on.

Do you know what they’re saying? You should. You probably want to respond if people are saying less-than-positive things, and even if they’re just gushing about how great of a photographer you are, you want to know that as well. There are a lot of different ways to monitor what’s being said online, but today we’ll look at one of the easiest: Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is essentially a monitor of Google’s search index, and it alerts you when a new mention is made of a particular term. It makes sense to setup an alert for your brand name (in my case, Hockley Photography). If your full name isn’t too common, an alert for that makes sense as well. If your name is Bob Smith, that might not be so useful.

Here’s how to set up a Google Alert:

Go to http://www.google.com/alerts
Enter your business name as the search term
Go ahead and leave the type as “Comprehensive” which will show you all mentions of your name
Choose how often you want to be notified
Enter your email address
You’ll get an automatic email verification message… make sure to click the verification link in that message, then sit back and wait to hear when people are talking about you.

Setting up a Google Alert is a great first step at online monitoring. For those who want to learn more and go in depth about monitoring and reputation management, it’s one of the areas that’s a prime candidate for Social Photo Talk’s consulting services… hit that link to find out more.

Photo by davidChief, used under Creative Commons licensing

These other posts might be of interest to you:

Tagged as: google alerts, monitoring, reputation management