Reader Question:
“I fail to see the value of RSS feeds, and do not employ it, but your simple
explanation of its usefulness, in one of your next email letters to us, will be
welcomed by me and others who still do not use this feature.
Not all of us sit by computers all day, as we have a life beyond these time
consuming industry…lol”
I have no doubt about the confusion most people still have about RSS. I also don’t assume that since RSS has been around for years that my readers have also been “around” since then and understand the full impact RSS has had on the web on the whole, and specifically for website marketers.
Why Use RSS as a Subscription Method to Keep Up On News?
Because it saves you time and gets you out of subscribing to “newsletters” which are often very pitchy. An RSS feed subscription, as is the case on the Friday Traffic Report, gets you my latest posts on the blog. I can and do email that list directly, if you subscribe via email, but only periodically and only for serious announcements.
Most responsible bloggers rarely mail their RSS subscribers because they know they are already being served up the content on the blog and that’s their main voice and mdeium to connect with their readers.
RSS Readers: If you subscribe to an RSS feed with a “feed reader” like Bloglines, BlogRovr, or several choices of desktop feed readers, then the feeds come directly to your chosen reader and bypass email all together.
So, Why Use RSS to Get Updates?
1. It actually SAVES you time. Collecting all the information you want from your favorite sites in one place, whether in a special folder you set up in email for all your subscriptions or in a feed reader, makes it easier to consume.
2. You can stay off email lists all together by using an RSS subscription through feed readers. This would cut down on email overload and put you in control of when you want to read news. (The downside to this is that you have to REMEMBER to check your feed reader for new items or it is totally useless. Except in the case of BlogRovr which enables your RSS feeds to “follow you” around the web as you surf.)
Is RSS the same as subscribing to email newsletters?
Yes and no.
RSS only works on things like blogs and information that is converted into a “feed.” Therefore, if someone wants you to subscribe to their newsletter, it is often to get you on a list to make offers and deliver content solely by email. Very Web 1.0 and not necessarily the list you want to be on if content is your main attraction.
Marketers abuse the heck out of their lists and deliver very little in the way of true content. Very few have been successful at delivering the goods via email lists. Paul Myers at TalkBiz.com comes to mind as the exception, not the rule.
RSS is usually attached to a line of regularly updated content where writers only succeed if they are providing killer content. You only get more subscribers if your content is worth it. So that’s why bloggers tout their RSS subscription count as major social proof of their site’s value in their market.
RSS Content is Higher Quality, Overall
So, in this example, if you had a choice of signing up to a newsletter or an RSS feed, if both are offered, you’d want the RSS feed because that’s where the pure content is going to be. It has to be or the writer won’t go anywhere and their traffic will fall to nothing over time.
The same is true for email newsletters, but marketers ignore this rule and go for the numbers. A person with a 300,000 email list doesn’t have to be as diligent with what they send out or the quality of the content or offers because they have so many subscribers on their list.
But that does end up costing them in the long run. They are in a constant battle to replace unsubscribes with new, fresh meat in order to pitch them to death.
RSS is Anonymous
“RSS feeds solve all the problems that spammers and bad marketers created with email, because it puts control back in the hands of the subscriber.” -CopyBlogger.com
Even if you subscribe to my feed via the email delivery route, I still only have your email address. Lots of RSS subscribers are interested in anonymity and this method protects them. If you subscribe via a feed reader, you aren’t even giving up your email address, so you are totally anonymous.
RSS is Customizable
There are tons of tool popping up every week to enhance and make your news more effective and efficient to keep up on. I know people who subscribe to my feed also subscribe to some or even hundreds of others.
How do people consume so much information when most people “aren’t sitting near a computer all day?”
Since RSS is a universal data delivery method, you can get information through your phone. You can use all kinds of tools to highlight the most important incoming information among your many feeds.
You can use tools like BlogRovr to have your feed content follow you as you browse the web and, when it notices similarities among the pages you surf and the feeds you are subscribed to, will alert you right there that so-and-so’s feed has an article in it that might be of interest to you based on the page you are currently browsing.
Many online feed readers will help you find more content similar to what you are interested in when you sign up for them. For instance, when you sign up for BlogRovr, they give you content groups to check out that might match your interests. I have discovered tons of great blogs this way that I never knew existed.
In total, RSS as a method of consuming information on topics and from writers that interest you is a more efficient, enjoyable use of your time than having an email box full of random newsletters which don’t always deliver what you really want.
RSS is Absolutely Everywhere!
- When you sign up for a new social site account you are offered an RSS feed to keep up with your friends activities without having to go check the site each time.
- When you find a blog you really like you can subscribe to the feed through any browser, your feed reader, or by dropping your email into a form.
- Every major news site uses RSS.
- Every major non-blog site converts their content into RSS so it can also be delivered to RSS readers.
Try surfing around for an hour or so to your favorite sites and look for the little orange RSS icon. You will find it is just about everywhere you surf these days.
Check out the number of feed subscribers bloggers have. Problogger is up to almost 50,000 subscribers. TechCrunch has 861,000 RSS subscribers!
RSS isn’t a fad or something to ignore because it doesn’t seem like anyone is using it. Millions of people are using it and most don’t even know it. Lots of people use it on their Google or Yahoo home pages and don’t know they are subscribing to an RSS feed when they ask for updates from CNN.com to be included on their pages.
RSS is Part of the Present and the Future
Now that you’ve proven to yourself that RSS is a big deal, instead of just wondering if I am to be trusted on this topic, you also need to understand what RSS can do for you as a website owner.
If you are a blogger, you need to convert your RSS feed to FeedBurner.com immediately. It is a free tool that does a lot more than your plain feed (that comes with your blog) can do.
You must prominently display your subscription button on your site to get more feed readers. Notice that the top blog sites all have the little FeedBurner “chicklet” near the top of their pages.
If you want to deliver your feed via email, once you’ve grabbed a FeedBurner account, follow the directions for setting up email delivery through FeedBlitz.
I want the ability to mail my subscribers from time to time. That’s why I use FeedBlitz and make the email subscription option plainly available on my sites.
Here are some hand-picked articles to read up on RSS from getting more subscribers to using all kinds of neat tools to enhance the syndication of your content all over the web…
Submitting Your RSS Feed to RSS and Blog Directories
Copy Blogger on RSS Feed Marketing
RSS Feed Roundup (2006)
How to Sell RSS (Excellent post!)
ProBlogger on RSS Feeds
10 Techniques I Used To Go From 0 To 12,000 RSS Subscribers In Seven Months – With No Ads Or Leverage
