Use RSS to spread the word
Do you use RSS feeds for your business? How?
The relatively new tool called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) lets you spread your business's message far and wide at virtually no cost. You can also make money by placing ads in the feeds and having them link back to revenue-producing areas of your Web site.
Businesses often struggle with how to cost-effectively get the word out about their products and services. The best price, of course, is free. And the relatively new tool called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) lets you spread your message at almost no cost.
RSS applications called newsreaders and RSS-reading Web sites read in headlines, short text, and even ads and images from online publishers. You can be one of those publishers. One of the beauties of RSS is that people who get your message have asked for it--you don't have to worry about spam catchers or ad blockers or that recipients of the feed will ignore you. After all, they've subscribed.
As a Web user, if you use personalized headlines on My Yahoo or My MSN, you are probably using RSS. There are also many stand-alone RSS feed readers. But making the technology work for you, as a publisher of information, is a bit more complicated than subscribing to an RSS feed. Here are some tips for getting your message seen and heard.
RSS is nothing more than a technology based on a format known as XML, which takes headlines (usually about 5 to 10 of them) and a few lines of text from your site and sends this out in a fashion that lets anyone read them easily, then click through to the relevant portion of your site.
RSS has some major advantages for marketing and advertising campaigns. RSS is opt-in, has a very reliable delivery rate, and avoids spam traps that send e-mail to unread folders. It also allows you to maintain a one-to-many relationship with customers with much less technological interference or time spent than with some other solutions, such as e-mail or phone centers. Also, since someone generally has asked to receive an RSS feed, the recipient will probably pay more attention to it than he or she would to advertisements, which have become commonplace.
Most RSS readers support images in postings. Some also support embedded video and audio (podcasts).
Yes, you can. You can place ads in RSS and ads on the site when someone clicks through and engage users to click to other areas from which you make money.
Josh Rubin, founding editor and publisher of CoolHunting, a site about design and culture, publishes a feed that offers his site's full text with advertisements. CoolHunting is able to recognize revenue from the ads served in the full-text feeds, as well as when casual browsers click through to the full postings. Users who click to the site are offered the chance to buy something, such as music, for which Rubin gets a percentage.
The Web site Woot, an online retailer of "cool stuff cheap," sends out daily RSS feeds that include listings of its latest available products. A recent feed included a wireless keyboard, a digital camera, and a discounted wall mount.
RSS is great for content that is updated regularly, such as news, event listings, and retail specials. CityCrybs uses RSS feeds to publish personalized real estate listings for real estate seekers and sellers. Amazon uses RSS to announce best sellers and to help its users keep track of releases they are most interested in. FindSavings uses RSS to publicize coupons and related sales information.
A broad range of RSS publishing and editing tools exist that are cheap and easy to use. There are also many free or low-cost publishing systems, such as Movable Type and Blogger, that publish RSS automatically. Even at the top end of the cost spectrum, a yearlong subscription to a hosted publishing service is in the $150 range, far cheaper than traditional advertising and much easier to manage, because you can craft the message from one place.
Once you've decided to set up an RSS feed, you should pay particular attention to what you put in it and how it's done. An RSS link that reads "Free tin of cookies with every order over $20" is much more enticing than "Gift with purchase." A good link title will also make it easier to find your feed and content among search results or other feeds in a reader competing for potential customers' attention.
Once you have your feed set up, users can subscribe via text links (for example, http://example.com/rssfeed.xml) or images that contain the URL of your feed. The near-ubiquitous, orange XML button is the standard fare. Both My Yahoo and My MSN have detailed RSS publishing guides, including how to create custom buttons for your RSS feed. Besides My Yahoo and other portals, sites such as Feedster, Syndic8, Technorati, and Bloglines search, crawl, and aggregate feeds. Google and Yahoo also search RSS feeds and blogs. Most of the aforementioned sites allow you to submit your feed to them for consideration so that people can easily include your info without having to go through a lot of technical steps.
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