Finding out who is talking about you around the Internet is important for a number of reasons.  First you can know how well your marketing plan is working.  Second You can see if your customers and readers are liking what they buy and read.  Lastly, you can leave comments and thank others for the feature or good comment.  Now not everything is all sugar and spice and sometimes you have to defend yourself or set something straight.

With the vast network of blogs and social media it is tough to know where this  is all going down, so here are three free tools that can help you find out who is talking about you and your business across the Internet.

Google Alerts:

The first tool I like to use is Google Alerts.  I love this tool cause you can set is and forget it.  Once you have it set up it will email you with results everyday.

Here is a little rundown of what it looks like and how it works. (click the pic for a larger view)

To set up a Google Alert you must have a Google account first.  After you set that up head over to the Google Alerts page.  Type in the word or phrase you would like to be alerted about. You can pick what category/type, I like to be alerted about every type. Pick how often and how many results.  Make sure your email address is correct and you are done.  You can preview the current alert for the phrase right on this page.

Google Blogs:

The Google Blog Search is a great way to find out who is blogging about you and your business.  This is a straight forward tool, just enter your search terms and there your go.  There are a some options like searching by time and subscribing to the rss feed of the search.  For more advanced options you can click the Advanced Search button near the top right.

Here is a look at the advanced options.

Social Mention:

Social Mention is a great tool that will pick up on blogs and social media.

Below you can see a screen shot of what a search for Handmade Spark looks like.  I typed in the search “handmade spark”.  I use the quotations to make the search very specific.  I also picked the “All” category to cover everything.  You can see that Social Mention has a ton of great info on the side bar along with the search results.

Here is a screen shot a bit further down the page with more search results and useful info in the side bar.

Social Mention also provides an automatic email update like Google Alerts, you can find it HERE.