Brand Builders Part 12: Have You Built A Listening Station?

Keeping Your Brand Current

So, you want to build your brand, he need to know what’s happening out there in the world. Now you do not have time, I’m assuming, to really go out and check everybody’s stuff every day. Because you’re looking at your customers. You’re looking at your competitors. You’re looking at those masters and other industries. You want to know what is being said about your company. You’ve got to have a listening station. This is the best way to keep tabs on everybody. Now, we use a pretty robust third party software system, because we utilize it for all of our clients, and it’s super expensive. But I’m going to give you kind of a clue, a little heads up, on how to do a less expensive, free version, that’ll hold you over until you may be ready for a big time one.

Now, if you think this isn’t enough, and you want bigger, let me know, I’ll be happy to give you some feedback. But what I want you to do with this listening station is start with just a Google alert. So, if you haven’t already used Google Alerts, they are so simple. You just go in and you type in a name, of a person, or a company or product or a service, and you set up alerts for those. Now, you can get an alert every time somebody writes about it on the internet, you can get an alert delivered to you once a day, or once a week, or even once a month. And, so, Google goes out and scans all the stuff and says, “Oh, hey, this is something important you should pay attention to” and brings it back to you.

Listen, I’ve gotten Google alerts about a client being arrested before the clients family knew, because it was published as soon as the mugshot was taken. I’ve gotten Google alerts about a client’s plane crashing before anybody else knew except first responders on the ground. As soon as that tail number popped up, I was alerted. So, you want to have these alerts set up because it’s just going to give you that quick heads up. It’s going to let you be one step ahead of the story. And if you’re dealing with PR crisis management, Google Alerts are crucial.

So, go set up that listening station and use it for your board of directors, your CEO, your big products and services, the name of your company, and all your competitors. This way, you’re going to be a little bit ahead of knowing what’s happening with them, and it’s going to help you build your brand.