How to set up a Google Alert
Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by Cat in How To
Google Alerts are a handy way of monitoring conversations. Whenever there are updates to Google’s index on a particular search term, you can arrange to be notified.
You can use this to keep up to date with your company’s name, your product/service brand name, your own name or your company’s key personnel. You can also use this to monitor keywords that are relevant to your product/service so as to keep up to date with news in that area.
Go to Google Alerts, and you’ll notice a small box.
Fill in the search term you want – just choose one keyword or keyword phrase (you can make 1000 Google Alerts per email address).
Enter the email you want it sent to.
The default option is “Comprehensive” which you’ll get anything that turns up in Google’s search index, but this may be too much or irrelevant so you can limit it to news reports, Blogs, websites, video or Google Groups results.
You can also choose the frequency that you’ll receive email updates – once a day or week or as Google gets updated itself.
When you’re happy with your settings, hit “Create Alert” and you’ll get any updates on your search term straight to your inbox!
If you want more than 10 Google Alerts (you can have up to 1000 per email address), you will be asked confirm/verify that you want to receive these alerts via your
At any time you can stop getting alerts by using the “delete alert” link at the bottom of your alert emails.
If you have a Google account linked to your email, you can manage your alerts by going to the Google Alert page and finding the “click here to manage your alerts” or by using the “Manage your alerts” link at the bottom of your alert emails.
Will it Blend?
Posted on 21. Sep, 2009 by Cat in Marketing
When you type “Blender” into Google, in the first handful of results (and the first result that involves an actual blending machine) you will find Will it Blend?
Blendtec make blenders but they also make wikedly successful viral videos showing their blenders blend all manner of things you wouldn’t normally blend. Their videos on blending an iPhone and and iPod had 5,430,656 and 5,466,711 views respectively. While this says something about the virability of stuff associated with Apple, most of their other blending videos reguarly get over 100,000 views with many hitting half a million or more.
Being in Australia, I’d never heard of the brand before but after seeing them pulverise garden hoses to hot soup (including the container), I’m now convinced of its superior blending power. It tops my list of blender desirability – I soooo want one! All because of some clever videos.
Because I can’t bear to watch an iPod or iPod being destroyed, here’s one of a sneaker being turned to dust:
Charity Spotlight: Kiva
Posted on 19. Sep, 2009 by Cat in Inspiration
Kiva is one of the few charities where donors often get their donations back. This is because Kiva is a non-profit organisation that facilitates micro loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.
The process (as the diagram below shows) is that you look through listings of entrepreneurs who need financing, choose one, send $25 or more to Kiva and they pass that on to the relevant micro financing organisation in that developing country that lends it to the entrepreneur. When the entrepreneur pays the loan back to the micro financing organisation, it goes back through Kiva to you – you can then lend it to someone else if you want, donate it to Kiva to help with their operating costs or withdraw your funds.
And because Kiva partners with micro financing organisations on the ground in developing countries, you can be assured that the entrepreneurs’ stories listed are genuine.
Here’s a video that explains what Kiva is:
Here is an example of a Kiva loan request:
Micro finance (also known as micro credit and micro loans) goes beyond charity and empowers people in the developing world to create self sustaining businesses. It also means that one donation can have multiple lives as it able to be recycled to fund future projects.
30+ Idea Sources for HubPages and Articles
Posted on 15. Sep, 2009 by Catherine in Content and Copy
As part of a Hubpages content creation challenge, I put up a huge list of ideas for articles for places like HubPages and Squidoo and Ezine Articles. It’s a good source of ideas for not only article marketing but blog posts.
Here is a small selection:
- Idea Source 14: Archives of big blogs and websites: Look through the archives of websites/blogs in your niche that are massively prolific. Examples are http://Mashable.com, http://Gizmodo.com, http://www.bhg.com – they are an ideas goldmine.
- Idea Source 17: Email Newsletters: Look through any email newsletters that you subscribe to (if you don’t have any, you should subscribe to a number in your areas of interest – make sure you set up a filter so that they bypass your inbox – this is purely for reference when you need it not to make your inbox more unmanageable): the tips and advice can be idea starters for Hubs.
- Idea Source 28: Twitter Search: Type your keyword or niche into Twitter Search and you’ll get a list of recent conversations that feature that word. Often there will be links but what I love is looking for questions or problems – these you can answer in a Hub.
For more go to my hub: 30 Sources for Ideas for the Hub Challenge – A Cheat Sheet.
Adoption as a Business Model (and Marketing Idea)
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Catherine in Business Ideas, Marketing
No I’m not suggesting that you go out and start doing something illegal – I’m talking about how virtual adoption can be a really great idea to connect people with your product or service (and donate funds!).
While Miro (a pretty cool video service that is definitely worth checking out) claims to be the first to allow “adopting” code – this is hardly a new business model – you see it a lot in charities like environmental groups that allow you to adopt a tree that you don’t actually physically own but you’ve sponsored; or aid groups that let you sponsor a child and be able to send letters to them.
Through beautifully rendered graphics charting the anthropomorphised growth of your code, Miro creates a real sense of connection between you and what effectively is a bunch of characters.
Remember how successful Cabbage Patch Kids were in the 1980s? Yes, they were adorable – but the killer marketing move was in giving each Kid its own birth certificate – it was no longer just a doll, it was your child. Miro gives you an adoption certificate that you can even post on your blog and “watch yours grow”.
And one day, your code will grow up to be “a little buddy like these”…
This has a place outside charities and open source software like Miro, I’ve seen apple farmers let you sponsor an apple tree for a year and you get all the apples it produces sent to you.
Can you think of something in your business that can be “adopted”?
Recommended Services
