Google Alerts have been around for nearly 20 years to help anyone get customized email alerts when their chosen word or phrase is used online. Sure, you can set time aside to manually monitor your competitors, your own brand, and identify leads, but alerts is a standard tool used in business today to get either instant alerts, or a roundup of various mentions in a dedicated time. But not all communities are thoroughly indexed by Google, like Reddit, which is commonly used by people openly discussing endless topics, but brand topics aren’t uncommon.
Reddit flareups can happen extremely quickly, so being notified when something happens (especially if it involves your name or your brand) is a serious benefit.
Scout is a keyword tracker for Reddit and is now in beta testing (they’re taking signups for their waitlist now). If you do any marketing for your brand, or you’re smart and know that your personal brand matters just as much, you’ll want to sign up for their launch.
Scout allows you to be notified immediately if a comment on Reddit contains a word or phrase you have specified, and like Google Alerts, you can also set notifications to arrive in your email inbox as a daily report of all instances.
What’s unique about Scout is that if you wish to, you can narrow your search to specific subreddits which can be useful if your alert is a more generic phrase that may appear too many times across Reddit itself.
Not only is it useful to track mentions of your name and your company name, but if someone is discussing certain housing markets, knowing that a subdivision was mentioned can reveal a potential buyer or seller. Getting alerts regarding certain phrases can also improve conversions, like “looking for a house in [your specific area]” or “looking for a Realtor in [your specific area.]”
So check out Scout for lead gen and brand monitoring – Google Alerts aren’t enough anymore!
