Monitoring Activity with Google

There are many ways to measure the volume of activity around a word, phrase, or meme. Here are a few you can check out free. Can you tell that I'm eager for spring to arrive?

Google Trends Summer Stuff.png

Go to Google Trends and take a look at the search term trends for the following phrases or words on the same graph. Enter the first search word/phrase, then use "Add Item" to add the second word or phrase:

Komen Foundation & Planned Parenthood
Facebook & Twitter & YouTube & Pinterest
Toys R Us
Lose Weight & Weight Loss (order matters)
Diet & Diets (spelling matters)
Violent Video Games (can you figure out why this one is so cyclical?)

Notice that these last two examples show you that some phrases are very cyclical (the cycles repeat every year). You can't simply assume that a sudden spike in activity means something is going on. It might just be normal behavior for the company or phrase you're monitoring.

You can use Google Trends to find good SEO (search engine optimization) words to use in your social media marketing campaign.

The New and Improved Google Trends

Set up a Google Alert for a company or phrase that is of interest to you. If you are in charge of monitoring the social media and PR activity for anyone, you should have a Google Alert set up. At the very least, you might want to monitor your own name!

NOTE: We'll talk about Google Analytics when we look at blogs and tools like HootSuite and Sprout Social when we look at how to manage multiple social media accounts.