Ever wondered exactly what top tier PR firms do for their high-flying clients?
About 10 years ago, I got a glimpse while working with Koteret, one of Israel’s leading PR firms.
One of the services they performed for their Fortune 500 clients was keeping track of “mentions.” Every time a newspaper or blog or any media outlet mentioned the name of their client in Hebrew, it would go into the “monthly mention report” – which I was tasked with translating into English, so that the company could read it.
I can’t even imagine how many thousands of dollars those household-name corporations were paying Koteret to perform this “mention-tracking” service. Obviously they understood that it was extremely important to keep close watch on what was being said about their brand.
The same goes for nonprofit organizations such as a community kollel, shul, or new program on the local college campus. There are many reasons why you’d want to keep track of what is being said about the name of your organization, project, your faculty and of course, your personal brand – AKA your name.
The good news is that now you can get this mention-tracking service for free from Mention.net. I recently signed up for the service and all I can say is: It Works!
I now get email alerts telling me when people mention my name anywhere on the web.
Google Alerts is Dead. Try This Instead!
Remember Google Alerts?
If you are like me, you signed up for it a few years ago. It used to notify you by email of mentions on the web.
But now it’s in the “Google Graveyard.”
Mention.net is a similar concept to Google Alerts. You tell it what keywords to alert you for, and it will faithfully email you every time someone mentions your name. It also works great for social media mentions, where Google Alerts was always weak.
It will even notice if you are mentioned in a Facebook group that you are not a member of and didn’t even know existed!
Why Do You Need to Know When You’re Mentioned?
There’s the obvious fact that most of us like to know what others are saying about us. May it always be good things!
But if not, it’s probably important to know about bad things too. I’ve recently started collaborating with a company that specializes in online reputation management. In other words, they help people and companies whose names have been tarnished online and who are quite desperate to get those negative results off the first page of Google.
Cleaning up a bad name online is doable, but it takes time and money. A tool like Mention.net would allow anyone to track what people are saying about them, so that they can intervene in a negative situation before things get out of hand. G-d forbid that any of us should be in a situation like that. Mention.net is one tool to help prevent it.
On a more positive note – and hopefully a more common one – we want to know when people are talking about and recommending us and our projects. Then we can go over there and respond. What a great opportunity to engage with people who are interested in all of the great work that you are doing for the Jewish people!
So, if you’d like to keep track of what people are saying about your name, project, or organization – try out Mention.net. It’s free!
P.S. Thanks to illuminea’s big boss Miriam Schwab for telling me about Mention.net. I know that Miriam has Mention alerts set up for her brand. That means that sometime around now she should be getting an email telling her that I’m talking about her on my blog. When that happens, she will probably come read this post.
Feel free to also see other great services that are similar to Mention.net such as Moz and TalkWalker. Hatzlacha! May you only hear good things for years to come!
For more tips and strategies for achieving your goals online, visit Naomi Elbinger’s popular blog, My Parnasa: The Jewish Business Blog and download her free ebook, The Jewish Guide to Success on the Web. You can view the original piece here.
