Find Out When Prospects Appear Online Using Newsle

For quite some time, I have recommended using Google Alerts as a way to automatically search the web for mentions of your key clients and prospects. However, there is a downside to this service – you have to enter each name individually, so the Google search engine knows what to search.

Newsle.com is a service similar to Google Alerts and was acquired by LinkedIn last year. After you agree to connect via LinkedIn and Facebook and sign up for the Newsle service (it is free), you will be notified when one of your contacts are making the news. Whenever they are quoted in a story, send them a personal email congratulating them. If appropriate, add a comment on the post as well.

All businesses are relationship businesses. Newsle provides you with a way to connect with your prospect on a personal level. Knowing more about the people in your network – like when they are mentioned in the news – can highlight relevant insights that just might help you engage with them at a different level at your next meeting.

Newsle shows articles about your first-degree networks on LinkedIn. It also goes a step further with the Friends of Friends feature. This is a great way to find new relevant people to contact.

In addition to your connections, Newsle will also send notifications when your name appears online.

The Newsle service has become one of my most favorite social media tools for gathering relevant and important stories about the members of my network.

Here are three simple steps you can follow to get started:

1. Sign up.

Go to www.newsle.com and create an account. It’s simple as long as you’re willing to give them access to your LinkedIn and/or Facebook contacts. As far as I can tell, your contacts are not notified. If you’re worried about safety, take solace in the fact that LinkedIn owns Newsle… so they pretty much know your contacts anyway.

2. Review your regular emails from Newsle.

You can set up notifications to be sent to you daily, every three days, or every week. I would suggest you start out with daily to see what kind of activity it generates. Once you see the activity, you can change the setting to less frequent. When the email comes in, take the time to read it.

3. Use this information in real life.

While the information is sent to you automatically, it is not acted on automatically. When you notice a client in your Newsle email, call them, email them, or drop them a note. You can just say something like, “I noticed you on (insert website or periodical) the other day linked to your involvement in ______. That’s fantastic.”

That’s all you have to do – you’re just calling to recognize the fact that you saw them.

If they are a prospect – the fact that you saw them is an excellent excuse to follow up. You might say, “I saw you on (insert website or periodical) the other day linked to your involvement in ______.  That’s fantastic. It reminded me – we need to get back together and continue our conversation…”

As with any technology, Newsle is only as good as how you use it. I recommend you try it out. Let me know what you think.