Here are a few ways to keep an active ear on the Internet for terms or names you may take a particular interest in. For example, if you want to see how much press or buzz a competitor is getting, or how much play a recent press push on your own behalf is getting, consider setting up some of the following recommendations. I use them daily, and I can definitely vouch for their value - not only in maintaining an active role in your company’s public persona, but in identifying new clients, new competition, new fans, or even new problems. These techniques are like putting your ear to the rails, and knowing the train is coming long before it arrives.

How to Listen on Google
Setting up and monitoring Google Alerts is the best way to immediately be notified if content is generated online that pertains to [your important word here]. Configuring Google Alerts is relatively easy, and we have included instructions below. It is advisable that alerts are compiled every few weeks and analyzed for types of new content and tone, as well as what media outlets and sites are picking up the new content.

Open Google Alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts (You will need to create a Google account if you don’t already have one.)

Enter the Search terms you wish to monitor, in quotes (quotes will confine your search results to only include all words included within the quotes, vs. just the singular words.

Set the “Type” to “Comprehensive”. This will ensure your alerts are based on all types of media, content and tags, including video, blog posts, etc.

Set the report to “once a day” or “as it happens”, in order to get the alert as soon as Google has indexed the information.

Save your preferences. Now alerts will be sent to the email account you used to set up the Google account, either as HTML email or text only emails.

How to Listen on Twitter
We advise you to set up a Twitter Account and familiarize yourself with Twitter. www.twitter.com

Go to the main Twitter Search page - http://search.twitter.com.

Enter “Your Important Words” into the Search field - Hit the Search button.

Look for the RSS icon and link called “Feed for this query” in the upper right corer of the search results page, or copy and paste the URL from the search results page into your Google Reader subscriptions.

Repeat for as many terms or names as you would like, and create multiple feeds you can monitor.

Consider using TweetBeep to set up alerts which can be scanned and emailed to you hourly or daily, based on preset criteria - http://tweetbeep.com.

Setting up Google Reader Feeds for Results
Go to Google Reader’s site - http://www.google.com/reader.

Make sure you have a Google account and are signed in.

Look for the Add subscription link in the left column.

Click the Add subscription link and enter search terms OR paste a feed URL directly into the field.

Your subscriptions will be added, and will appear darker if they are unread, and lighter if you have already read the feed.

Bookmark this page into your browser’s toolbar so you see it every day and are reminded to check it out. The email reminders are great to keep an eye on things when you aren’t at your computer, and I make a point of checking my feed subscriptions every day to see what is being said about Fastspot, our clients, applications or sites we are releasing, and other topics of interest.

We also recommend using these practices to assist you in pushing marketing and press out to the community. As you participate and share within these communities, you will create your own social networks, and people interested in your company or brand will begin to rely more on you for information vs. the noise being published by the general public. If you aren’t there to represent yourself, then you are at the mercy of what everyone else is saying.

If you or your company are doing other interesting things to keep an ear or eye on the net, let us know!

Resources:
Just found this great blog post on how to spy on your competition - great suggestions!
http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/10/07/14-tools-to-legally-spy-on-your-competition
Great Twitter Resources! http://www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-community-and.html