Creating Your First Alert

Set up alerts to monitor podcast mentions of your brand, people, or topics. Think of alerts as smart assistants that listen to podcasts for you and let you know when something important is mentioned.

Basic Setup

Getting started is simple:
Look for the black "ADD NEW ALERT" button in the top right corner
If it's not already enabled, switch on the alert using the green toggle - this tells Podscan to start listening
Give your alert a clear name like "Brand Mentions" or "Competitor Watch"

Think of this like setting up a Google Alert, but specifically for podcasts.

Adding Smart Filters

This is where you tell Podscan what to listen for. For example, if your company is "Acme Solutions":

Add variations like:
- "Acme Solutions"
- "Acme"
- "AcmeSolutions"
- Common misspellings like "Acmy Solutions"

The system will catch all these variations. Think of these as different ways people might say your name.

Making Alerts Smarter

Here's where Podscan gets clever. Instead of just finding any mention of your keywords, it can understand context. You can enable the Context-Aware Question Filter to filter out mentions that don't "fit."

Here's how it works:

Podscan looks for any of your Filter keywords in the transcript of a newly published episode
If it finds any keyword, it then checks if you have a Context-Aware Question Filter set. If not, you get an alert immediately.
If you have a Context-Aware Question Filter set, it runs an AI-powered check that seeks to answer your question with either a "yes" or "no."
Only if the answer is a resounding "yet" will you get a mention.

This helps with false positives. For example:
- A basic alert (just keywords) finds "Acme" — but might catch "Road Runner and Acme" from a cartoon show.
- A context-aware alert (keywords + context) asks "Does this episode discuss Acme as a business solutions company?" and only alerts on business-centric episodes.

Now you'll only get relevant mentions about your company.

Getting Your Alerts

Choose how you want to learn about mentions:

- Immediate Updates: Get emails as mentions happen (max 10 per hour, 25 per day): turn on Send notification emails
- Daily Roundup: One email with all mentions from today: turn on Send summary emails and select Daily
- Power User: Send mentions directly to your other tools (like Slack, Zapier, or Make): turn on Send webhook notification (learn more about webhooks)
- Spreadsheet Ready: Get mentions as CSV files attached to your summary emails: turn on Attach mentions as CSV file

Pick what works for your workflow. Start simple - you can always change this later.

Focusing Your Search

Podcasts come in many flavors. Choose where to look:

Business Podcasts? Tech Shows? News Programs?

If you're a tech company, you might choose:
- Technology
- Business
- Entrepreneurship

Skip categories that don't make sense for you.

If you're only focused on tech, you might want to skip
- Comedy
- Kids
- Music
- Politics

Making Sure It Works

Once you save your alert

Look at what it finds over time
Check if the mentions make sense
Fix your filters if you're getting irrelevant podcasts
Make sure you receive the notifications: check your spam folder

Think of this as a test drive before you hit the highway. Over time, your mentions will come in more and more reliably as you fine-tune your filters.

What's Next?

Once your alert is running:

- Make collections to organize important mentions (like folders for your emails)
- Share interesting finds with your team
- Connect to your other tools (like Slack or Teams)

Remember: Start simple. You can always make your alerts more sophisticated as you go.

Need a hand? Our support team is ready to help you create the perfect alert.

Updated on: 06/11/2024