Recently I have started to use Google alerts to track more and more subjects that I have different interest in. From the beginning I mainly used it to track the buzz around the company I have been working for but many more ways to use it. So, in case you only use it for that or any other one reason, I thought I would share how I use it.
The way I use Google Alert makes it become a daily digest with an international summary of my interest, kind of my personal newspaper. Here is a few ways to use it:
Tracking your personal or company brand
Track your name or the name of your company, so that you can read anything that is being said about you. This is good both to see what people are saying, but it also gives you the opportunity to quickly respond to things that are said. As an example this can help your customer service to catch unsatisfied customers and make sure that they will return in the future.
Track the company you want to work for
If you are looking to work at a particular company it can be great to track what is being said about them. That will give you an opportunity to get to know about their staff, customers and client. This knowledge could give you an advantage in an interview and before that it might help you find out if you are what they are looking for, or how your knowledge could help their business.
Research a subject you are interested in
Tracking everything that is being said about the thing you are interested in might be a lot if it is a broad subject. However, you can choice either to specify your interest or to choice to have the alerts “once a day” or even “once a week” so that your inbox doesn’t get flooded with updates. Personally I limited one of my interests by choosing to only follow it in Swedish, as it is a subject is a lot smaller in Swedish, so that is an opportunity to. Either way, by tracking you interest you will be really up-to-date with what is going on, all over the world.
I work as a web development manager at a swedish telecom carrier. I write about tips, tools and examples for better web experiences. 
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