You need information overload.
Every day in every market there are dozens of pieces of information generated on the web. You need to keep yourself abreast of what’s happening in your target market. This will allow you to instantly respond to new information as well as have seemingly innovative ideas about that information.
Think about it this way:
Let’s say your target market is people who use iPods—you sell iPod accessories. If you stay on top of your market you can be the first place they hear about the latest new gadget or the next announcement from Apple, etc.
And if they hear about it first from you, you become the place they ALWAYS go to for news and info about iPods.
Cha-Ching.
But unless you have a brother-in-law at Apple, how can you be one of the first to get and write about the news?
Simple: Google will tell you.
Google has this cool thing called “Google Alerts” where you give Google a list of keyword phrases and topics you are interested in, and Google tells you via email whenever a piece of info about the topic enters their database.
And Google is always the first to know.
(Well, that’s not always true. My Aunt Carla was the first to hear when Kendra and I were going to have our first baby, but she happened to be at the house when the Doctor called. I was second, then my parents, then her parents and THEN we called Google.)
How do you set up Google Alerts for your keywords and topics? Here’s how:
First, get yourself a Gmail account. If you don’t have one, try asking the next person who emails you from a Gmail account to “invite” you. They probably will. (Unless they really don’t like you, then they might not.)
Then, once you have your handy-dandy Gmail account, go to Google.com
In the upper right hand corner you should see a link that says “Sign In”.
Sign in.
Now that you are logged in, click on the “My Account” link.
Then click on the “Google Alerts” link.
Type in the keyword, keyword phrase or topic you want to stay informed about, choose the type of alert you want to have and how often you wish to be notified, then hit “Create Alert”.
Repeat this process for as many terms as you would like to be notified about.
I have about 100 terms in my “hot list” I use for writing, so I have a filter set up on my Gmail account to archive them until I am ready for them. Then I just type “Google Alert” into the search box and they are all nicely displayed for me.
