Google as a Clipping Service
Imagine a room full of people with grease pencils tirelessly pouring over trade journals like American Vegetable Grower, Logging and Sawmilling Journal, Produce News, and Medical Construction and Design Magazine. These readers work for clipping/media monitoring services that scour print publications looking for key words like 'compost', 'plywood', 'organic citrus', and 'patient care'. Businesses pay a monthly rate plus a per clip charge everytime one of their keywords is found and a clip mailed. 
Thanks to Google, most businesses can avoid the cost of a clipping service by using the Google Alerts service. The free service sends emails with links to relevant news/blogs/web sites/groups/etc everytime a key word is found. Alerts can be emailed immediately, daily, or weekly. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include monitoring a developing news story or keeping current on a competitor or industry.
Say you're an architectural firm interested in developing your 'green building' practice. You can sign up for alerts for 'green building' to stay abreast of current developments but you can also sign up for mentions of HOK, Gensler, SOM, and other competitors. Don't forget to include your own company name to find out what people are saying about you.
There are more advanced monitoring services offered by companies like BurrellesLuce or CustomScoop, but you should evaluate these on case by case basis.
Take the first step by finding out what's being said and by whom using Google Alerts.
Excellent advice and thanks for the mention.
As the CEO of CustomScoop, I would second your recommendation. For many small companies, Google News represents the best solution. Professional services like ours make sense only when a company needs to track a significant number of clips or wants to engage in more advanced measurement or analysis. Simple alerts of a handful of clips every day (or less) don’t justify the expense.
At the same time, I encourage most businesses to think more broadly about how they use a clipping service — free or paid — to be sure they are getting maximum value. Your suggestion to look at competitors or industry information is right on the mark and is actually similar to advice I gave in a white paper published earlier this year.
by Chip Griffin
on 22. Mar, 2007