The “AT&Ts” of RSS Digital Marketing

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are a type of web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. An RSS feed includes a summary of content from the associated website, including titles, descriptions, and links to the full articles or posts. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what RSS feeds are and how they can be used in digital marketing strategies:

What are RSS Feeds?

RSS feeds are typically XML files that contain a list of items (such as blog posts, podcasts, news articles, or multimedia content) and metadata (such as publication dates and authorship). Each item in an RSS feed includes:

• Title: The title of the content item
• Link: A URL to the full content
• Description: A brief summary or excerpt of the content
• Publication Date: The date the content was published
• Other RSS Metadata: Additional details such as the author, categories, or tags

How are RSS Feeds Used?

Content Aggregation

RSS feeds are highly effective for content aggregation, a process that involves collecting content from multiple sources and displaying it in a single, centralized location. This functionality is particularly beneficial for users who want to stay updated on various topics without the hassle of visiting multiple websites. Here’s how content aggregation works with RSS feeds:

1. Subscription to Multiple Feeds: Users can subscribe to RSS feeds from their favorite websites, blogs, news sites, podcasts, and other content sources. This can include everything from industry news sites and personal blogs to niche content publishers.
2. RSS Readers: To view these aggregated feeds, users typically use an RSS reader (also known as a feed reader or news aggregator). Popular RSS readers include Feedly, Inoreader, and The Old Reader. These platforms provide a streamlined interface where all subscribed feeds are displayed in an organized manner. RSS readers allow users to categorize feeds into different folders or sections, making it easy to manage and prioritize the content they consume.
3. Unified Content Viewing: Aggregated content from all subscribed RSS feeds is displayed in a single view within the RSS reader. Users can easily browse through new updates, read summaries, and click on links to view the full content on the original website if desired. This unified view saves time and effort, enabling users to efficiently stay informed about the latest updates across multiple sources without switching between different websites.

Automated Content Delivery

RSS feeds automate the delivery of content updates, ensuring subscribers receive the latest information as soon as it’s published. This process benefits both content creators and consumers:

1. Real-Time Updates: When new content is published on a website, the associated RSS feed is automatically updated. Subscribers receive real-time notifications of these updates through their RSS readers. This immediate delivery system ensures that users are always up-to-date with the latest posts, articles, or media releases without any manual intervention.
2. No Need for Manual Checking: Subscribers no longer need to repeatedly check their favorite websites for new content. The RSS reader does this work for them, constantly scanning subscribed feeds for updates. This automation reduces the cognitive load on users and increases the likelihood that they will stay engaged with the content.
3. Enhanced User Experience: Automated content delivery via RSS feeds enhances the overall user experience by providing a seamless and efficient way to access new information. It ensures that users don’t miss out on important updates and can quickly digest the latest content in a convenient format.

Syndication

Syndication via RSS feeds allows content creators to extend their reach and distribute their updates to a broader audience. This process involves making RSS feeds available for republishing by other websites and applications. Here’s how syndication works and its benefits:

1. Making Feeds Available: Content creators generate RSS feeds for their websites or blogs. These feeds are made publicly available, allowing other websites, news aggregators, or applications to access and republish the content. By providing an RSS feed, content creators enable their updates to be easily discovered and shared by a wider audience.
2. Republishing Content: Other websites or platforms can subscribe to these RSS feeds and republish the content on their own sites. This can include news aggregators, industry-specific portals, or content curation sites. Republishing content through RSS feeds helps drive additional traffic to the original content creator’s website, as links back to the full articles are typically included.
3. Expanding Reach and Audience: Syndication via RSS feeds significantly expands the reach of content. It allows content creators to tap into new audiences who may not visit their website directly but are interested in the syndicated content. This broader distribution can lead to increased brand awareness, higher website traffic, and greater engagement with the content.
4. Building Partnerships: Syndication can also facilitate partnerships between content creators and other websites or platforms. By sharing content through RSS feeds, creators can collaborate with complementary sites to enhance visibility and reach. These partnerships can be mutually beneficial, providing both parties with valuable content and expanding their respective audiences.

Using RSS Feeds in Digital Marketing Strategies

Content Distribution
Blog Promotion: By offering an RSS feed for your blog, you can ensure that your content reaches subscribers as soon as it is published. This increases the likelihood of regular readership and engagement. Integrating RSS feeds into email newsletters provides automated updates to your subscribers, keeping your audience engaged with fresh content without manual effort.

Social Media Automation
Use tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Zapier to automatically post updates from your RSS feed to social media platforms. This ensures consistent content sharing and reduces the time spent on manual social media updates.

Content Curation
Aggregate and curate content from various industry-related RSS feeds to provide value to your audience. Sharing curated content establishes your brand as a thought leader and keeps your audience informed on relevant topics.

SEO and Traffic Generation
Regularly updated content through RSS feeds can improve your website’s SEO by increasing the frequency of new content. Search engines favor websites with fresh, relevant content, potentially driving more organic traffic.

Customer Engagement
Encourage customers to subscribe to your RSS feed to receive updates on new products, services, or promotions. This keeps your audience engaged and informed about your offerings.

Competitive Analysis
Monitor competitors’ RSS feeds to stay updated on their latest content and strategies. This can provide insights into industry trends and inform your own content strategy.

### Example of Implementing RSS Feeds

– **WordPress Blogs**: Most WordPress blogs have RSS feeds built-in. Users can simply add `/feed` to the end of the URL to access the feed (e.g., `http://example.com/feed`).
– **Email Marketing Platforms**: Platforms like Mailchimp allow integration of RSS feeds to create automated email campaigns that send updates directly to subscribers.

### Conclusion

RSS feeds are a powerful tool in digital marketing strategies, enabling automated content distribution, enhanced customer engagement, and improved content curation. By leveraging RSS feeds effectively, businesses can streamline their content marketing efforts and keep their audience consistently informed and engaged.

Your RSS Strategy Is Critical to Your Overall Marketing Strategy

The problem with RSS in most marketing plans is that the marketer doesn’t really go beyond providing a simple RSS feed for your brand news. To get started the right way you need to segment RSS as a critical element of your overall content placement strategy. Your RSS Marketing strategy shouldn’t just indiscriminately push content, but carefully serve in delivering to the content preferences of your audiences.

The right way to go, even if you’re only starting out with a simple RSS strategy, is to provide individual RSS feeds for:

1. Your individual target (A) audiences,
2. Your different (T) types of content and,
3. Even your different content (T) topics.

Think of this as a suggested list of how to develop your RSS strategy.

Target Audiences

Start by listing the target audiences you want to deliver your content to via RSS. Each of your audiences has different content needs, resulting in different groups of RSS feeds that need to be created for these target audiences. One group for the media, the other for your employees, the other for the general public, the other for your existing customers and so on. You can even go further and divide your master groups in sub-groups, based on their prevailing interests.

Content Types

Now consider the different types of content you want to deliver to these audiences. For example your latest news, your blog posts, your how-to articles, your press releases, your podcasts, the latest posts from your forums, direct communications messages and so on. In most cases these types of content don’t mix well together. If someone wants to receive your blog updates, which are full of your company representatives’ personal opinions and commentary, they don’t necessarily want to receive your corporate-speak press releases.

If someone is interested in what’s happening in your forum and what the latest forum posts are, they don’t want to receive your how-to articles in the same RSS feed, simply because these two types of content are so much different. Essentially, you will need to provide separate feeds for each of the different content types, and you will need to determine what content types you wish to deliver to each of your target audience groups and sub-groups.

Content Topics

Finally take a look at each individual content type for each individual target audience and further break that down by content topic, if needed. And if you’re trying to cover many different topics for each content type, you will need to provide different RSS feeds for these different topics, because, again, people interested in topic A are not necessarily also interested in topic B.

While this may sound complicated, it’s really simple once you start doing it. The point is, this is about giving your subscribers choice of what they subscribe to. Instead of forcing them to subscribe to everything, deliver the flexibility for them to customize their experience with our brand’s content. In this way, your content becomes more valuable and interesting to your audience.