What to do when you get too many Podscan alerts (or none at all)

Alerts is one of Podscan's main features. It helps you stay in-the-know about what people say about your brand or business. But what if you receive too many (generic) alerts or no alerts at all? Here's what to do.

You're getting no alerts

Not getting any alerts isn't fun. It would mean nobody's talking about the things you're looking for. Luckily, this isn't the case. There might be something going on with how you've set up your alerts.

Try Podscan's search first

When you search for the exact same thing you're trying to set up an alert for, you will see Podscan's results for the live episode database. You can determine if your alert will yield any hits based on your search results.

If you get no results, it is indeed something people don't talk about. Try fine-tuning your search query to see if you can get more results. When you do, use those queries as the foundation of your alert settings.

Check for common misspellings

This is something that happens to me often. I don't have an English name, and while my English is quite okay, it isn't perfect. Transcribing makes the occasional mistake here.

Another thing to consider is clever brand names. When you take a common word and change the spelling of your company name, it becomes harder to transcribe.

Luckily, Podscan has a solution for this problem. Under Team Settings, you can add common misspellings to the Corrections & Pronunciation list. Podscan will keep this in mind while transcribing new episodes.

You're getting too many alerts

This is quite the opposite of what we discussed above. Now, you're flooded with alert notifications. They're too many to keep under control.

You can regulate the amount of alert hits you get using the following three methods.

Use a context-aware question

When creating a new Podscan alert, you can enable Podscan's context-aware questioning. Whenever Podscan thinks it has a hit, it will first check the context-aware question and will only notify you if it can answer the question with a 'yes.'

For example, I had an alert that would check for 'SaaS product design.' It triggers quite often, so I added a context-aware question to check whether the hosts (and quests) are designers.

This reduced the number of alerts I received while making the alerts I did receive more relevant. Win-win!

Search first (again)

As we discussed, when not getting any alerts, searching first is helpful here, too. It lets you test the waters before setting up an alert.

When you do a search, you'll see the number of hits based on Podscan's growing episode database. If you feel like the list is too long, you might want to add a context-aware question or fine-tune your filters.

Finetune your filters

Fine-tuning your filters takes a bit of practice. My first alert filter in Podscan was 'design.' I'm a product designer, and I talk about design a lot, so I thought 'design' would be a good filter.

I was wrong. Very wrong. I got over 100 alerts per day. As it turns out, design can be much more than product design. It is also a verb, which increases the number of hits even further.

Instead of using 'design' as a filter, use something more specific like 'product design,' 'industrial design,' or whatever type of design you're working on. It really helps.

As a bonus tip, I also want to highlight Podscan's alert notification settings. You can change the e-mail notifications from daily to weekly or disable them altogether.

Closing thoughts

Getting the balance between no alert results and too many alert results right takes a bit of practice. It is the Podscan learning curve we all go through.

In most cases, people start with too many results and then reduce them to just the right number by fine-tuning their alerts and context-aware questions. The latter has been especially helpful for me as a Podscan user myself.

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