This is one of those “check the gas tank” blogs.
You know…your car just quit running, and you’re wildly swinging into imagined foul-ups with your on-board computer, your alternator, a short in the wiring harness, or something to do with the automatic transmission, and then someone comes along and says: “Did you check to see if there’s gas in the gas tank?”
OK, so here goes: Are you Googling yourself every day?
Maybe this is elementary, and you’ve been doing it for years, but if not, you should be.
BE ALERT
Now, there are a couple of ways of doing this. One is just to type your name in the Google search, and look at the results( see my blog: Google is Your Resume). The other way is more automated, and more immediately reflective of daily traffic.
You may be doing this already too: Google Alerts. But are you doing an “alert” on yourself?
Click HERE to go to Google Alerts. The dialog boxes are self-evident. Choose a term (your name or nickname). I suggest you tell Google to search “everything” at least once a day, then tell Google where to send it.
It’ll show up in your mailbox as regular as clockwork, and provide a list of links to all the places where your name showed up on the web that day.
Some of it, of course, is superfluous (for instance, “Courvoisier” shows up daily on a Busta Rhymes reference for the song “Pass the Courvoisier”)…and some days, not much appears.
Every once in a while, though, you’ll get an unexpected mention, kudo, reference, or link to your site for which a follow-up, or even a “thank you” is appropriate. Building a business, is all about building a relationship, right?
In the alternative, you may also find the stray complaint about your site, your service, or a comment you made. Such references — if unfounded — certainly deserve a response, no?
I’ve found some very interesting stuff with this method. More often than not, it leads to thanking someone for a mention. But your name is certainly a part of your brand, and as such, your business model should probably include a regular assessment of your profile on the web.
It’s better than running out of gas.
CourVO
