Blog » Putting Legs on Your Content with RSS
Putting Legs on Your Content with RSS
Last week I posted an article on Bloggertone titled 8 Reasons it makes CENTS to give your content away. As a content marketing practitioner and enthusiast, I promoted the practice of unlocking the content on your website - making it available to anyone that wants to read it. The idea behind this is you will get more benefit by freely sharing your knowledge than protecting it and charging for the privilege of your expertise.
Social Media vs. RSS
This week I’ve been thinking about ways to make your content even more pervasive. Social media is one of the 3 components of content marketing and my preferred method for driving traffic to my website. I was speaking about this to Ryan Briggs and he asked me how I was utilising the RSS (really simple syndicate) feed on my site. I admitted, sheepishly, that I probably wasn’t making the best use of it. I know it feeds into the Perth Web Industry News Digest but hadn’t used it anywhere else. He suggested an RSS feed is a perfect content marketing tool because it gives content legs. He also said not enough people are embracing RSS and are missing valuable opportunities to increase their online footprint.
Here are the reasons Ryan recommends every website needs an RSS feed:
- Subscribing to an RSS feed allows you to get real time web content updates from your favourite sites, usually used for news, blogs & events.
- Most browsers allow users to add RSS feed tabs on tool bars for easy access
- Google reader and other such utilities allow you to subscribe to all your favourite sites in one place allowing you to get the latest feeds from multiple sites at once.
That was all I needed to hear to start exploiting my own RSS feed. I immediately went back to work and registered my website in 3 different places.
- Technorati www.technorati.com
- Wotnews www.wotnews.com.au
- Facebook www.facebook.com
After only a couple days, I’m hooked on the possibilities of RSS. Some of the benefits include:
- Publishing to multiple audiences without any additional effort
- Real time updates
- News, blog posts and events can all be included in an RSS feed
- Depending on where your RSS feed is registered, the content on your website becomes mingled with official news sources from around the world
Are you using an RSS feed to promote your blog, news, or events? Where have you registered your RSS feed?
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Comments
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Hi James,
You make an excellent point about RSS feeds not capturing the details of your readers. It's an important consideration for your overall website strategy.
My focus is more on inbound marketing - educating my customers and prospects online. I do think I reach a wider audience when I take advantage of my RSS feed.
I'm speaking on the topic of inbound marketing and content marketing at the Small Business Marketing Day in Melbourne on 30 March. If you're interested in finding out more about new marketing trends, plan to attend. I know the The Woo is planning on "taking the show on the road" and I'll let people know when other cities have been scheduled. http://www.thewoo.com.au/marketing_day_Melbourne
Posted by Sarah Mitchell, 22/03/2010 10:36pm (6 months ago)
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The "elephant in the living room" with RSS is that you don't get the contact details of your readers.
This means that it can't provide the same kind of marketing database that an email newsletter subscription, for example, can.
That said, it has many other benefits for both publisher and reader: new-fangled "inbound marketing" vs old-school "outbound marketing".
(Confession: My company publishes the Perth Web Industry News Digest to which Sarah referred)
Posted by James Bull, 22/03/2010 9:41pm (6 months ago)
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Hi Susan,
I learned about Wotnews at the Media140 conference in Perth. It's an Australian-based news aggregator service and is free of charge. It makes me wonder how many other services are around like that.
I do think subscribing to email updates are more popular than RSS. I'm really new to using my RSS feed (as opposed to just letting it sit there) but I like the real-time updates RSS provides.
Posted by Sarah Mitchell, 22/03/2010 7:09pm (6 months ago)
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Hi Sarah,
I use RSS feeds and thanks for the tip on Wotnews. I had not thought of that.
On another point I have noticed more and more people are subscribing to email updates rather than RSS.Posted by Susan Oakes, 22/03/2010 6:58pm (6 months ago)
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