Alright… if your NOT already using this, your going to wish you were!
This Google Product seems to look simple at first glance, but don’t let it fool you. The issue with this tool is that it’s limited only by your imagination. Let me stop there for a second and describe what GOOGLE ALERTS actually is.
With Google Alerts, you get notifications whenever something happens in your niche or topics that matter to you. Sounds simple, and it is, as easy as filling out this box:
FYI: (You can also go into your settings tab to create custom “ALERTS” and it’s just as simple.)
Now I’m sure you can think of many basic reasons to using this feature, but let me show you a couple ways that I’ve used this feature with non-profits that I’ve worked with in the past.
The FIRST thing I do is create an ALERT for our website. Just place our website in the search box and click “as-it-happens”
Next, I do the same thing but add “link:www.yourdomain.org” in the search box with the same “as-it-happens” setting. Now what does this do. It sets up a ALERT that will notify me via email of anything containing our website. So I know everything that is happening with our website. The second ALERT that we made sends me information on any “links” that link to our website. For example, if someone post on a blog or post somewhere and provides our website as a link. It will send me a email notifying me of that post. This is the perfect way of staying in the loop in regards to your organization.
Another great way to use GOOGLE ALERTS is for looking for grant opportunities…. Yes I said you can use this to search for grant opportunities. You can get as detailed as you want but something as simple as setting up an ALERT search for “Grants+music and the arts” It will send you updates, although I recommend that if you do decide to do this. You might want to set your notification setting for once a week. I mention this only because based on your search criteria, if you have it set to as-it-happens, it can be a bit overwhelming. Which you will have to experiment with, since every query is different and results vary.
I personally use Google Reader for all of my news information. I subscribe to news feeds such as: CNN breaking news, my local paper, and Huggington Post,etc.. That way I have all my news in one place and can read it as I like. But what’s great about GOOGLE ALERTS is that you can also have your ALTERS set up to be forwared over as a feed instead of email.
I’ve also read that there is a way to set up GOOGLE ALERTS for SMS (texting) although I have yet to use this feature
I’m going to provide you with some other great uses for GOOGLE ALERTS within this post soon!
So check back soon! To find more ways on how your organization can use GOOGLE ALERTS!
(This post will be updated)
