Google Alert: A Great Way with Your Fans

Google Alert is a free service, a great way to build relationships with your fans. Google offers a tool for monitoring who is talking about you.

On https://www.google.com/alerts, enter the search term you want to monitor along with your email address, and Google Alert will send you an email with a listing of websites making reference to your selected search terms.

I monitor my own name James Lazzeroni; whenever someone mentions my name, I get notified. When my fans post blogs about my piano music, or a video of them playing my solo piano compositions on YouTube, I get an alert about it. It's common for pianists to post videos of themselves playing my music on YouTube. When they do, I get a notice from Google Alert, I can watch the video and write them a comment to pat them on the back for their work.

Google Alert is a great way to monitor when people mention you, your blog or website, keyword and keyword phrase you want to track. Once you receive the alert, you have an opportunity to jump into the conversation and post your own comments on the topic.