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TECHNOLOGY: Why RSS is a Better Way to Reach Your Audience |
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By now, you’ve
probably heard of weblogs. You may even be convinced about how
weblogs can improve communication with existing and potential
customers by providing a 'window on the world' to your business.
Over the last six months, blogging has gained recognition and
understanding in the corporate world. However, there’s still some
confusion around a complimentary, equally-useful technology called
RSS.
What is RSS? RSS -- which stands for Really Simple Syndication, or
Rich Site Summary, depending on who you ask -- is a technology
that lets you publish news over the Internet and ‘push’ it out to
interested readers. RSS is published in feeds or channels, and is
read using a new category of software called news aggregators or
readers.
RSS is often
mentioned alongside weblogs because blogging software
automatically generates RSS feeds. While the two technologies are
a natural fit, RSS has wider uses and is quickly being adopted by
businesses as a new communications channel and an efficient way to
distribute information. From press releases to event announcements
and customer memos, syndicating content with RSS offers a way
around spam filters and ensures that interested parties receive
your company info.
Still, PR and
marketing professionals are slow to adopt RSS. Many of you may
believe it's too difficult or too technical. Perhaps the
information you've read about RSS has scared you away? After
reading this article I hope you will see that RSS can be an easy,
viable way to publish corporate information. Here are five key
reasons why you should adopt RSS as part of your communications
strategy. 1. Avoid
Spam Filters Nearly half
of the 31 billion email messages sent every day are junk email,
and the average email user receives 2200 spam messages a year.
For PR and
marketing professionals, a reliable communications infrastructure
is critical. You can’t afford to hope your messages are getting
through.
The beauty of
RSS is that your readers 'opt in' to receive your news by
subscribing to your feed. You simply provide the location of your
RSS channel, which is similar to a website address, and your
reader pastes that address into their news aggregator. Voila - you
have a subscriber. Even better, news aggregators are not subject
to spam filters.
2. Make
Journalists Happy
BusinessWeek
magazine calls RSS the "online paperboy" because it delivers news
from the websites you want to read directly to your news reader.
The software periodically checks each RSS channel you are
subscribed to, updates recently published news items and displays
the results. RSS provides
an easy way to read information, and allows readers to monitor a
vast amount of information on a daily basis. Microsoft
uber-blogger Robert Scoble reads over a thousand sites a day
thanks to RSS. This would be impossible, time-consuming and
frustrating without the technology because you would have to visit
all the websites you want to read instead of having the RSS feed
send the news directly to your desktop.
Journalists
are rapidly adopting RSS, and increasingly want companies they
regularly cover to publish RSS feeds. This is good news for PR
professionals because RSS provides another way of getting your
company message directly to journalists who are monitoring your
RSS feeds.
3. Improve your
Web Traffic
Many marketing
departments use Web statistics as a measure of marketing success.
How does an RSS feed increase web traffic? It drives customers to
your website by providing them with a summary of your news.
Customers who receive company announcements in their news readers
often click through to the website for more information. 4. Monitor
your Online Reputation The next
generation of search tools such as
Technorati (www.technorati.com),
Pubsub (www.pubsub.com)
and Feedster (www.feedster.com),
depend on RSS. If you’re not providing an RSS feed for them to
index, the users of these tools aren’t finding your news. More
importantly, you can use these tools to see what people are saying
about your company online. You can do keyword searches for your
company name and easily track the results. These search tools
provide you with a unique url that can be pasted into your news
reader and starts the flow of keyword matches onto your desktop.
These search engine tools index sites and RSS feeds hourly,
providing up-to-date information about what's being said about
your company and your competition. 5. It's
Easy - Even for a Non-Techie RSS is a
valuable tool, a new weapon to add to your arsenal and an
efficient way to reach customers, partners, investors and
journalists. It’s an easy way to communicate information to an
interested audience. You know the people subscribing to your RSS
channel want your news and you are providing that information in
an unobtrusive, timely fashion. Because RSS is still a relatively
new technology you can still be ahead of the curve. If 2004 was
the year of the weblog, 2005 is the year of RSS.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fergus Burns
CEO
Nooked US
T: +1 617
342 7317 |
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