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August 18, 2006
Your Company Was On the News - Huh?
Now and then I send notes to companies noting that their company or personal name had shown up in the news feeds. They are often surprised that I'm reading about it before they are and ask how I do it. Well, it's relatively easy and anyone who owns a company should be doing it. Its always nice to know when you, your company or your clients show up on, or in the news.
E-mail to you:
Go to www.google.com. In the search box, type in the name of your company. When the results come up, click on "News" at the top of the page. When that page comes up, look in the left column for "News Alert" and then follow the instructions. This will send you an e-mail whenever those words you typed into the search box appear in the news. To keep from receiving e-mails with a bunch of similar stuff, go back to the start and put quotes " " around your words. Then it will only pick up those words when they are together in the same order. You can create news alerts for your own name, variations of your company name and client names. You will then receive an e-mail whenever they appear in a news source around the country. Although Google will catch most of the news items, you can do something similar with Yahoo and MSN, ic you want to cover the spectrum.
RSS News Feed
If you have RSS News Feeds coming to your computer or internet browser, this will provide you with the same information, but won't overload your e-mail in-box. Start with Google, and follow the same instructions up to "News Alert". Instead select "RSS" or "Atom" based on the format your news reader uses. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 (now in Beta 3) have built in capabilities to handle news feeds, allowing you to organize them into groups, to set how many will be stored, and how long before they're deleted.
Don't be the last to know that you have an angry owner at a client association. Its your company and its good name. Keep track of how its being used.
Posted by joewest at August 18, 2006 11:33 AM