Hey! Somebody’s talking about you.

Somebody’s talking about you, your company, or your products… and you can find out what they’re saying, whenever they say it. All it takes is a few minutes of effort and zero cost thanks to Google Alerts. Free and easy competitive intelligence.

It will take about 10 seconds to set up an alert for your name. Another 10 seconds for your company’s name… 10 seconds each for your product names. Just enter your search terms, type of search and frequency. The tricky part is the email address. If you have the time, enter your own. If you don’t, assign a dedicated surfer. Ask them to visit the links and report back or forward anything significant.

So, somebody’s talking about you. What’s next? Join the conversation. If they’re saying something nice, say thank you. If they’re saying something negative, say thank you and add some positive comments that might turn them around.

You can also try a customer-focused marketing twist. Set up alerts for key customers, companies, products. If somebody says something nice, send a personal note including the link. If somebody says something not so nice, teach your customer how to use Google Alerts.

Dedicated surfer scores PR win for Comcast.

I have often encouraged CEOs and senior managers of midsize businesses to find someone in their life to be a dedicated surfer, someone who can keep an eye on the social web for good or bad comments about their companies or their competitors.

Comcast (not a client) has apparently adopted this approach in its efforts to climb out of the customer service cellar. Only time will tell if customer service scores will improve, but here’s an example of a single contact that resulted in major publicity for Comcast and a company in Philadelphia called iFractal.

clipped from seattletimes.nwsource.com Stormy times for Comcast By Bob Fernandez The Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA — Most afternoons, the Internet in Sarah Chambers’ office at iFractal in Philadelphia crashes and leaves her cyber-stranded without e-mail or online communication with clients. When it happened for the zillionth time a few days ago, Chambers tried something new, once her Web connection reappeared. She shot Comcast a curt public online message on the social-networking site Twitter: “My Internet goes out every day at 3:30. Why would that be?” Frank Eliason, a Comcast manager with the daunting assignment of monitoring the nation’s blogosphere for venomous posts aimed at the company, answered right away: “That should not be. We should have that looked at. Send an e-mail with account info to We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com.”