Episode 7: Tips for Small Business Owners: The online research tool that helps you save time and energy when crafting content for your business

Need some help? Watch this tutorial video about how to best utilise Google Alerts for researching people, influencers, industries, subjects or content ideas for your small business. Scroll down for the full show notes.

There’s no need to spend hours searching for the latest updates concerning your business. If you want to be in the know of everything that would help your business, Fiona shares how Google Alerts is the secret weapon you need to achieve it without hiring market researchers. In this episode, Fiona gives her insights on how small business owners can benefit from using Google Alerts and why using it can potentially save you money. 

Topics discussed in this episode: 

• Introduction [1:02]

• Introducing Google Alerts [1:49]

• How Does It Work? [3:07]

• How Might You Use This? [4:08]

How Often Do You Use this? [4:38]

Who Are Your Sources? [5:10]

Which Language Do You Like It Delivered In? [6:00]

How Many Alerts Do You Want To Receive? [6:34]

• Why Should I Use Google Alerts? [9:23]

• Conclusion [13:31]

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

Google Alerts [1:55]

Hello and welcome to Episode 7 of My Daily Business Coach podcast. I am really looking forward to this episode.

It's a tip episode and the reason I'm looking forward to it so much is that I use this myself all the time and I am constantly, constantly, constantly recommending this tool to people. So what is today's tip, tool or tactic? Well, today's episode is all about a tool.

And this tool is, you know, like I said before, it's something I use all the time and it's something that can help you in so many parts of your business from, you know, brainstorming and curating content through to being seen as an authority in your space, which, you know, everyone kind of wants that, don't they? Planning a webinar or a speaking gig. What else can it be useful? Uncovering new ideas for brand collaboration, securing sponsorship and even researching and creating your pitch for an investment. If that's the way that your business goes.

So what is this magical tool? I mean, it's not a magical tool, but it's a great one. It is Google Alerts, and I'm gonna tell you all about it in a second.

So what is a Google Alerts?

I guess we should start there. What a very good place to start. So Google Alerts is a free tool from Google. One of many, many free tools that Google offers if you want to check out some of the free tools that they offer, I have a blog article about it. You can go to mydailybusinesscoach.com/blog and just look for my favourite Google tools. There's so many out there.

But one of them is Google Alerts. And a very basic description of it  is that it's really an online research tool that enables you to scour the Internet for a theme or a subject and have all of the best information on that theme or topic delivered straight into your inbox without you having to spend hours and hours trawling through websites, watching videos or reading the latest news articles. And I know that if you're pushed for time, like I am, and research and development is something that you want to do more of. Particularly when it comes to your content. But you don't always have the time for it.

So this is where Google Alerts can really step in and... yeah, big kind of magical.

So how does it work?

Well, it's pretty simple. And I know you might be listening to this from your car or from the gym or on a walk. So try and break it down for you as simply as I can as an audio. But I also have created a video training for you, and you can cheque that out just at mydailybusinesscoachdot.com/podcast/7 because this is episode seven. But I'll do my best to try and explain it orally - orally? Is that the right word over audio?

OK. So it's pretty simple. You go to the googlealerts.com interface and you simply put in the subject that you're interested in researching within the search bar. So it's a little like standard Google search. For instance, if you're a psychologist and you want to put together opinion pieces on something that's happened in the news or you want to write blog articles or you just want to update Twitter, but you don't have time to be constantly looking at the news and just checking out the latest policies and legislation that's changing because, you know, you're seeing clients all day as a psychologist. Then you might use Google Alerts.

How might you use this? Well, I would literally go, like I said before, to Google Alerts, dot com. And in the search bar, you might put in “mental health” or whatever other subject that you're coming up with. And you've just put that into the search bar at the top. And then what's going to happen is that there'll be a list of filters. So in here, I think it's create filters and you're shown a list of filters.

And these include like the first one is how often? So how often do you want to get these alerts? So you get to choose. I think there's three options. So you get to choose between at most daily, which would be at the end of each day you get these alerts. And two, you could also choose at most weekly or you can choose as it happens. So someone in, say, a PR agency or someone that works in radio or someone that otherwise needs to be ahead of the trends constantly might choose as it happens from the dropdown. But for most small business owners and most people, choosing weekly or daily is kind of the ideal because you just don't want to have these alerts coming to you every five seconds.

The next filter, the first filter is how often do I get these alerts, the next filter is the source. So where are you going to get this information from? Where is it gonna be sourced from? Now, depending on what your topic is and also what your business is, you might choose different types of sources. So in this example instance, say you're the psychologist again and you're looking for information on mental health, you may just choose to have the source be news. So you could just choose news at your source. And then Google Alert is only going to pull the information on mental health for you from online news sources. So, for example, I'm in Australia. So, again, in Australia, this could mean that Google Alerts will scour places like The Age newspaper, Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian ABC News and other sites like that that fit into the news category.

 The next option on your filters is the language. So which language do you like it delivered in? For me, English, the next up is your region. So this dropdown has a list of countries so you can have a look at it. Maybe you're looking to expand into the US. And so you'll drop down the US because you just really want to be connecting with that type of audience. Or if you're in Australia, you might choose Australia or wherever you are in the world. You can find your country or the country that you're trying to find information and connect with people through content in from the dropdown. So that's your region.

The last option is how many links or alerts that you would like. So you kind of have two options there. You have all results. So to be sent everything that falls into the category of for the example that we use before mental health and news. Or you can choose only the best results. So if you click only the best results, you'll just get the ones that Google Alerts deems to be the best quality based on a bunch of factors. I'm guessing that they're kind of similar to like SEO factors that Google is never going to tell us exactly what they are, but I'm guessing that they would see them as sort of quality.

Or you can choose to get them all and sort through them yourself. And then the last thing that you'll see on the Google alert interface is a space to put the email address of where you want these alerts to be sent to. So you can input an email address in that space or you can put an RSS feed. If you're going to put an email address in, you know, you obviously need to have some thought around where are these alerts going to end up? You do not want to just have the inbox just full of alerts where they get just annoying and then you end up not even utilising this platform. So some people that I've worked with have chosen to create a new email address. It's literally marketing@mydailybusinesscoach.com so that they can then go into that email account when they are brainstorming content ideas.

Some people that's not going to work. So they are just going to have it come into their own email account, especially if they're only getting it weekly. It's not that bad. But if you're having it as it happens, as your frequency and you're going to be getting these things every half an hour or so, maybe setting up a separate email address is going to be a good thing for your sanity. But, yeah, just whoever really manages the content or the marketing in your business might be the best person to get the email. And from there, what will happen is that you'll be sent snippets of the news articles directly into your inbox, just like a normal email. So what those really look like is almost like literally just a snippet.

It’s just the same as if someone shares a news article with you or a blog or a YouTube video, you're just going to get the headline and a line or two of text, sometimes an image and a link, a URL. So to go back to the example that we've been using of the psychologist in mental health, you'll receive an email, say, weekly or daily or whatever the frequency is set. And within that email, you'll literally have the headline of the news article, a one line snippet, and you are all of the source from that email. You can decide whether or not you wish to pursue research into that article or the blog or the video. And then you can click on the URL if you want to.

So that's really how Google Alerts works. But I know that one question you might be asking as a small business owner, particularly if you're not, say, a psychologist or someone that's looking at the news quite often, is why should I use Google Alerts?  And here are five key reasons.

Firstly, Google, it saves you time. So I don't know how long it might take you to go through YouTube and try and watch some videos or read the newspaper or multiple newspapers, scanning constantly to find things out or like with YouTube, you watch the video for twenty minutes and realise you're actually getting nowhere and you don't have the information. And Google alerts really can give you all that information that you need in one quick email that you can scan. And then you can decide which articles or which stories need further investigation as opposed to you doing all this investigation and kind of not getting anywhere quickly sometimes. That's the first reason.

Second reason - Google Alerts keeps you focus. So I don't know about you, but I can go to look for something online and I have great intention to do that. And then suddenly I've gone down a rabbit hole of information only to surface like an hour or so later without having actual resources or information that I was actually looking for. I got sidetracked or distracted by a friend's Instagram or something else I've seen or a different news article, and suddenly I've gone down that rabbit hole. So Google Alerts as a method of research keeps you focused.

The third reason I guess you could use this as a small business is that Google alert sources content that you may not have otherwise known about or be able to discover on your own. So I really think that this is one of the best parts or things about using Google Alerts is because you can uncover and discover sources that you just wouldn't have come across. So, for example, you know, you might get your news information from a newspaper that is not in your state when you use Google Alerts or one that you never really look at or a blogger that you never look at or someone on YouTube that you've never heard of. And it can come in as a Google alert and then suddenly you're uncovering all this great new content. The other thing that it's good for in terms of that is to find journalists and other media bloggers that, again, you may not have come across otherwise.

For tip four is a reason for I guess you'd say is Google Alerts keeps you aware of what's happening in your subject area. So if part of your marketing strategy or your figurehead marketing strategy is to up your authority in a particular niche, then this is a great, great, great tool for you. So the example of a psychologist, it enables him or her to see at a glance, you know, the top stories, the top policies, that top information, I guess it's out there about mental health and be able to give opinion or comment on that and stay on the forefront of what's happening.

The fifth reason is that Google Alerts provides never ending content ideas. So if you can't think of what to post or talk about on your next Facebook live, then this tool gives you so many content ideas. And if you continue even to see the same angle that's being talked about or the same hook that is being used by various news outlets or by various bloggers or kind of a common theme that you're seeing, then you might be like, awesome. This is the direction that we're going to go into because we already know that there's an audience for it or we already know that this is what everyone's talking about. And we're going to, you know, “join the conversation”, so to speak. I probably really don't like that term, join the conversation, because it's just overly used by massive brands. But reality is that you can see what's being talked about, see what's trending and jump into that if it's in line with your business.

Bonus. So I said there was only five reasons. There's a bonus - Sixth reason - and this is a little controversial, but Google Alerts can potentially save you money. So depending on your business, you might have media monitors set up where you might be paying monthly or for a retainer for media monitors. Now, Google Alerts is not a complete replacement of that at all. But what this can do is it can just help you understand what are the key things that are coming in and maybe wherever you are getting a media monitoring done, you could, you know, go down a rung in terms of your retainer or just look at other things that are out there that might be able to give you the same information.

 So that is the end of this tip episode. And I really hope that you've enjoyed it. I hope that you get a huge amount of help and inspiration and ideas from Google Alerts. I use it, like I said before, all the time, but. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening.

And please remember to subscribe so that you don't miss out on any future episodes such as these, that tip ones, which is usually quite short, all my interviews with amazing small business owners across the globe or my longer coaching sessions. And if you have enjoyed this, I would love it if you can forward this podcast link to a friend who might need it. And also, if you might leave a review on iTunes pretty please, so that this podcast can be found by a bunch of other small business owners. Yeah, that's it. Thanks so much. And I'll see you in a future episode. Bye.

Thanks for listening to My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram - @mydailybusinesscoach.