I thought you might be interested in another tool (disclosure: it's developed by my company!) that helps with managing all these feeds etc.
While there are paid versions, there's also a free version:
Most any online blogger knows how to monitor and track mentions of her blog or person across the blogosphere and on the Web at large. But you don't need to be a blogger to see the benefits that the automatic tracking of specific subjects offers to most any industry interest.
If you can track what the rest of the world is saying about you or your products and services, you have a great deal of valuable information at your disposal. Knowing what others say and think about you is the best and most effective way to improve your profile, positioning, price without needing to hire any expensive marketing consultant.
Photo credit: Marcel Hol
If you are yet unfamiliar with the tools and the steps required to start tracking in near real-time what others are saying about you and your product and services, here is a straightforward mini-guide from Sharon Housley helping you do just that.
Sharon hits a winner with this by providing a good basic list of search engines allowing the creation of "future searches", that is, searches that keep running forever on the topic you select. Coupled with the use of RSS content distribution and notification capabilities, such searches become active notification agents prompting you for whichever mention of your name / product takes place online in near real-time (a few hours is the most time you would need to wait to see anyone mention of you appearing on the web).
Ego Searches and RSS
By S. Housley
Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors or other specific keywords.
Conducting ego searches not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies.
A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these 'ego searches' painless and easy.
Dynamically created keyword based RSS feeds, update in your RSS reader or news aggregators, each time new information containing the keyword appears in the searched resources.
The dynamic feeds match requests against new information, as it comes online in real time. The following free services allow for RSS feed ego searches.
Overall, ego searches are an excellent way to stay informed and maintain a strategic advantage over competitors.
Knowing exactly what your online competitors are doing provides a competitive edge that can be used to your advantage.
Ego searches or any other keyword-based RSS feed can also be used to monitor key phrases for trademark abuses or monitoring the effectiveness of a specific press promotion.
Although they sound daunting ego searches are simply good business sense.
Robin addition: For the ultimate search engine capable of tracking mentions of yourself go test the newest kid on the block:
TalkDigger
Talkdigger allows you to see who else is talking about a specific subject online. This free service queries for you nine major search engines and bring you back the results in one page. Talkdigger leverages the power of:
Recent related resources:
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev an RSS component for developers.
2007-04-26 12:01:13 |
I thought you might be interested in another tool (disclosure: it's developed by my company!) that helps with managing all these feeds etc.
While there are paid versions, there's also a free version: