Google Alerts
What is Google Alerts?
Google Alerts is a free service that sends an email when Google finds new web pages, news articles or blog posts matching a search you set up. Many people use it for their brand name, competitors or industry terms.
It is simple and free, but it covers mainly news and web pages; discussions on social networks and many forums are often missed.
Why Google Alerts matters
It is a good starting point for brand monitoring. Teams that rely on communities such as Reddit, Hacker News or GitHub usually need more coverage.
Related marketing terms
Brand monitoring is tracking where and how your brand is mentioned online, from forums and social media to reviews and news.
Boolean search combines keywords with AND, OR, NOT and quotes to narrow results, for example a brand name without unrelated meanings.
Social media monitoring is collecting mentions of your brand or keywords across social networks and responding to the ones that need it.