By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern
Writers Magazine
Google Alerts is helpful if you avail yourself
of the service.
Google the phrase Google Alert and up pops
information that I believe can help authors. For those of you who are not
familiar with it, it is a service Google has that we can use to setup keyword
alerts and they mail it to you at various times during the day. Not only do
businesses rely on these alerts to update them on products, competitors, news
and other things but individuals rely on information about themselves as well
as products, etc. Yes, Google searches the web for news, updates, products, all
sorts of things. This can be very helpful.
For authors it could be beneficial to be alerted
every time your name is mentioned, or your books. Here is the website: https://www.google.com/alerts then
you would have an idea how much more buzz you need to create.
If you get a chance it would be
great to thank the person for mentioning your book, or name. People like to
know that we appreciate what they do. Perhaps you will make a new fan!
Another service is IFTTT. This is a service that lets
you create powerful connections with one simple statement: if
this then that. Gene Marks, a contributor with Forbes said, “relatively new service
absolutely crushes Google Alerts. It’s called IFTTT. That may sound like a strange name, but for anyone like me who’s
in the customer relationship management (CRM), accounting or database world
IFTTT stands for If This Then That. It’s a workflow tool. For you… It is a
workflow system for the cloud. And it, and other services like it, will become
the backbone of the next wave of Internet of Things technologies…” To read the
article the link is http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2014/11/03/this-little-service-absolutely-crushes-google-alerts/.
I think for now, I will stick with Google Alerts.
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