Check your digital presence periodically.

When you search for yourself online on a regular basis, you will review what you have posted on social media and also monitor how others may refer to you (excluding reviews).

Many professionals create Google alerts for their names and the name of their company, which is a good start to monitoring your online presence. There’s more to establishing an effective alert system.

If you haven’t already set up FREE Google alerts, follow these instructions.

Go to Google.com/alerts.

Enter the word or phrase for which you will create an alert in the indicated space.

Click the arrow Show Options to set the parameters. Daily, Weekly or As it happens. I prefer daily.

Sources is best set as Automatic, to include social media.

For How many, select All results

Finally, indicate the email address where you prefer to get these notifications.

Click the blue button Create Alert. You have now set an alert.

Click on the alert you just created to view the alert results. Congratulations.

Now, raise the bar.

Add a variant of your name, perhaps Beth for Elizabeth. You can also use your middle initial.

Do you have a suffix, like Junior?

Do you cite your degree: MBA, JD, Ph.D. or Esq.? Add that as a new alert.

Create an alert for your company and also your website URL, of course.

Make alerts for your phone numbers: office and mobile.

Narrow the scope of your results by using the minus sign (-) to exclude others with a similar name. For example, there was a professor at Columbia University whose hyphenated name was Falk-Kessler, so my searches are -Kessler.

Add your profession or business: accountant, consultant, attorney.

Perhaps add your city.

Raise the bar again.

Follow these steps on the website Talkwalker, another FREE service. Many Public Relations professionals find Talkwalker gives more comprehensive social media results than Google.

Start by creating an account at Talkwalker.com.

Click on Create to set an alert.

Similar to the instructions outlined above, set the parameters for Result type (Everything); Language (All languages); How often (Once a day); How many (All results) and Your email (enter your email address).

Remember to create additional alerts on Talkwalker, similar to the ones you set on Google, for a broad view of digital references to you and your business.

As good as these alerts are, you still should check online periodically. According to Shannon Wilkinson of Reputation Communications. “Checking weekly is a good policy. Clearing your browser’s history first will ensure you are seeing a true picture (otherwise you might be seeing an out-of-date cache your browser has autosaved).”

This Month’s Tip

Google has nearly 90% of the online search market in the US, but it is not the only game in town. Look also at Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckGo. Yes, there will be considerable overlap. You may, nevertheless, be surprised by what you turn up there.

Contact

Let’s find out what people are saying about you on the Internet. Contact me at Janet@JanetLFalk.com, set an appointment here or call me at 212.677.5770. Together we’ll create alerts and set calendar reminders, so you can easily track how you appear online.

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