Thanks for adding those tips Brian.

And also to @Traversty for your suggestion to track links using Google Blog search and the link: syntax + its e-mail/RSS Google Alerts-style.

Two points I’d add:
1. It can be useful to set up alerts for the names of any prominent members of your team (although I realise you’ve kinda made this point, albeit your brand name is also your actual name). i.e., the guys who monitor the online reputation for SEOMoz might set up an alert for ‘Rand Fishkin’, as he is often talked about online. By monitoring where this conversation happens, SEOMoz could take the brand message to the people.

2. I use iGoogle to organise all my alerts, which makes it much easier to keep on top of them all than receiving countless emails. You can set an alert as an RSS feed rather than an email alert, then simply add this as a widget to your iGoogle homepage. I further organise this by having different tabs for different types of alerts, i.e. a competitor brand tab, a prominent employee tab, a product name tab etc.