Bill Stoller of Publicity Insider (I recommend you subscribe - it's worth every penny!) put together these 4 quick, and very free ideas for tracking your media/PR hits. You are doing PR, aren't you? As an aside, before I go here, PR is really the only way I have of publicly keeping up with any of my old employers. I try to keep up with them in the press so that I can send congragulatory emails, or pass along ideas or interesting stories. The point here is that I'd slowly lose sight of them were it not for constant media presence, and your customers, current, and former, can lose touch as well if not reminded through the media that they consume every day. Seriously folks, many small businesses have as much fodder as any large business to write about, there just needs to be greater focus on intelligent PR work.

On with my adaptation of Bill's recommendations...

1. Google News Alerts (http://www.google.com/newsalerts) Simply tell Google News Alerts what topics or specific companies you’d like them to monitor, and they’ll send you an email when news articles appear. Simple & elegant.
   
2. Google Web Alerts - These give you the lowdown on pages, other than news sites, that mention your keywords. Same process as News Alerts. http://www.google.com/webalerts
   
3. Go to the Newspaper’s Website - If you know that a story appeared in a particular newspaper, chances are that the paper’s website will have it. This works with television & magazines, but it isn’t as reliable.
   
4. Clip & Copy - This service automatically scans over 300 publications to find keywords, names and phrases which you pre-designate. When Clip & Copy finds a news story that meets your criteria, it emails the headline and creates a summary of the story. http://www.icopyright.com/content_user/clipandcopy.html
   
5. Beg, Borrow & Tape - If you ask upfront, many sympathetic reporters will provide you with a "tear sheet" (a news clipping) when the story appears. Just make sure not to push too hard, and offer to send a self-addressed stamped envelope. Keep in mind, that reporters ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION to send you anything. Just because they're running a friendly story about you doesn't mean that you're entitled to review and critique it. In fact, I would argue that even asking for such grace pegs you as a putz.