What’s Being Said About You?

As bloggers, we like to know what’s being said about us – the good and the bad*. Two of the easiest ways to do this are Google Alerts and Twitter Search.

Google Alerts emails you anytime a specific phrase is posted online. To set up an alert, just head over to the Google Alerts page where you’ll see the following:

You can refine how results are sent to you (as it happens, once a day or once a week), how you receive them (to your email or to an RSS feed) and whether you want to filter it into a region (although for most bloggers, you’ll probably want to just keep it as “Any Region”)

Twitter Search is, if possible, even easier to use. Just search whatever you’re looking for, and it will fetch everything

The good thing about Twitter search is that if you search for part of your URL (e.g. search “bonjourblogger” or if you’ve got a Blogspot site, search just the bit before .blogspot.com) then it will bring up when other people have linked to your blog but haven’t copied you into the tweet. (Don’t be creepy though! It’s so weird when people respond to a tweet that’s days old – unless there’s a specific question, just make a note that people want to link to you and if they have any comments about it, then take them on board!)

• Yes, even the bad. Knowing what is being said about your blog negatively is a great way to improve your work!