EBlog

See who’s talking about you and your competition using Google Blog Search

May 18, 2008 | Posted by: Lee

Google Blog Search is a great way to start listening to the conversation when it comes to what people are saying about your company and your competitors.  If you're not currently monitoring the conversation out there in the blogosphere, here's an easy way to get started.

1.  First, go to Google Blog Search and search for your company name. 

• Use quotes if your name is more than one word.
• Results are sorted by relevance (based on a complex Google algorithm). You can also sort by date, but sorting by relevance pushes up posts that may be more influential.
• On the left side of the results page, you can specify the timeframes you want to look at.  Search results automatically default to "anytime" which can show you post from over 6 months ago, giving you a false sense of the amount or chatter related to your company, so I'd recommend changing to "past month" as it's a good way to gauge the real activity. 
  
• At the bottom of the results you'll see options to "stay up to date" on the results.  Choose "Add blog search gadget" to your Google home page.  By adding the results to your home page you can monitor results on a regular basis without having to re-run the search every time.
  

2.  Now, do the same thing for your competitors. 

• Search by name and add a gadget for results to your home page. 
  

3.  Review every couple of days. 

• I always click on the very first item in each gadget to mark it as visited.   Then when I come back in a few days I can quickly see how many new items have been added since the last time I looked.  Of course, if your company or competitors have lots of traffic, new items may push the top item off the list.

4.  Share what you find.

• As you find interesting links (either about your company or your competitors) send them to others inside your company to keep them up to date.