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Find out when your Twitter handle is mentioned in a news article

By Justin Pot · May 4, 2020
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"Twitter reacts" is an entire genre of news articles. If you're active on Twitter you've probably been featured in one, whether you realize it or not.

A recently-viral tweet pointed out that you can use Google News to find out. It's fun! My co-worker Andrew discovered he was quoted in a Hollywood Reporter article about Left Shark back in 2015.

Just search for your Twitter handle in Google News

I, meanwhile, was mentioned in a 2016 Dutch language Business Insider language article about the Mac battery indicator, which is extremely on-brand for me.

It's neat, but it would be more fun to find out about these mentions when they happen, if only so you could tweet incredulously about it. Happily, Google also makes it easy to get realtime notifications—just head to Google Alerts and search for your Twitter username.

Search for your Twitter handle in Google Alerts

By default you'll get an email anytime your Twitter handle shows up in a news article. If you don't want these notifications in your inbox, you can opt to use an RSS feed instead.

You can get an RSS feed instead of email notifications, if you want

Note that, to see the RSS option, you have to disable the Digest feature. Head to the Google Alerts homepage, click the gear icon, then uncheck the Digest option.

Turn off Digest to enable the RSS feature in Google Alerts

You can follow this feed using an RSS reader, of course. Or you can use it to send notifications to other applications using automated workflows we call Zaps.

I'm including some pre-made workflows to get you started. Just click on the button next to the name of the Zap, and we'll guide you through customizing it. It only takes a few minutes. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.

For example, you can share new mentions to a channel in Slack.

Share new RSS items in Slack

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    Automatically notify your team in Slack when a new item is published in an RSS feed of your choice. Customize the Slack message, too, showing the author, source, link to the article, and more.

    You can also compile these mentions in a spreadsheet.

    Log RSS feed updates as new rows in Google Sheets

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      Keep a log of RSS feed updates in Google Sheets. Zapier can automatically enter RSS feed information into a spreadsheet whenever the RSS feed is updated.

      Or, if you want to make sure you actually read every article you're mentioned in, you can save them to a bookmarking app like Pocket or Instapaper.

      Save new items in RSS feeds to Pocket

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      RSS by Zapier + Pocket
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        Set up this Zap to be sure you read everything from a source, without worrying about manual messaging. Once active, this integration automatically saves each new published item in your RSS feed to your Pocket account. Automatically apply a tag, too, to be sure you keep your account categorized.

        Add new RSS feed articles to Instapaper

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          Want to make sure your latest RSS feed articles are available on Instapaper when you find the time to read them? Set up this Zap and we'll forward all of them for you. It will watch your RSS feed for any new items, automatically adding them to Instapaper so they're at your disposal whenever you need them.

          These are just a few possibilities. Check out our RSS integrations to learn about more.

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          A Zap with the trigger 'When I get a new lead from Facebook,' and the action 'Notify my team in Slack'