RSS feeds – The new communication channel
Many of you may have heard the term RSS feeds floating around lately. You may have even seen these little logos 
on many of your favourite websites, particularly news sites and blogs (define blog). Many clients are asking, what is RSS, what does it do and why would I think about using it?
RSS is another channel for distributing information to people. Just like TV Advertisements, Skywriting, Newspapers, Websites, Blogs or Podcasting, it is a way to get information about your company, or yourself to a wide audience. It is a fantastic tool for companies who have regular updates on their websites and are designed to keep your company, ideas, products or services in the forefront of consumers minds.
Before we delve into the mechanics of RSS, feeds let us look at some real world examples of how they are used.
There are two angles with which to look at RSS feeds.
1. As the consumer
This person will read RSS feeds from different sources through an RSS reader or aggregator.
2. As the provider
This person will create the RSS feed.
The Consumer
Let us presume you are an avid news and blog reader. Each day you visit 10 blog sites and 10 news sites to see all the latest news updates and blog entries. That’s 20 different websites visited each day. It would make sense to be able to see all the updated content from these sites in the one place, Right?
Enter the RSS ‘reader’ or ‘aggregator’
An RSS reader gives you the ability to read multiple feeds from different sources in the one place. There are many types of readers available. You can download a software program that runs independently or there are many web-based facilities to utilise. Most of these facilities are free to use and are a good way to start using RSS and evaluate if it would benefit your company.
Once you find a site that has an RSS feed of interest, add the address of the feed into your RSS reader. When you click the update button, the RSS reader will compile the different feeds you have in your reader and check for updated information. Feeds may happen every hour, day or month and could range in information from personal blogs, tech news to movie times, recipes and stock prices. With hundreds of thousands of websites providing RSS feeds, the list is endless.
Most news sites and blogs have an RSS element within them. You may even have your own blog site or be looking at sites like MSN and Yahoo without realising they provide RSS feeds! If you use MSN Messenger or have an MSN Password, you can already receive RSS feeds through My MSN .
The Provider
Lets say you publish a page on your website outlining the benefits of your latest service or device. You can create an RSS feed about this and anyone who has your feed address added to their reader will receive your update without having to go to your website. If you are considering creating RSS feeds, this is a great way to keep people up to date with the latest information from your company. You may also drive traffic to your website as others pick up your feed and display it.
But how do you start creating and publishing your own RSS feeds?
First, you will need to create an RSS File. This simple text file holds your news, recipes, stock price (whatever information you add to it) and is created using of the one of the methods listed below.
1. Create a raw file in a text editor like Notepad or Wordpad.
If you are not familiar with XML or HTML, then this option may not be for you; however, it is not as hard as it sounds.
2. Use a software program to create an RSS File for you.
I have tried a variety of different programs and found RSSEditor one of the easier options to use.
Note
There are many providers of RSS creation software; I suggest you do a little research and choose the one that is right for you. Don’t be too daunted by this, you probably create different types of files every day, Word files, Excel files etc this is no different.
Both options take a little getting used to and some practice, but the rewards can be well worth the effort. For this article I will be creating RSS files using third party software. If you would like to create an RSS file from scratch there are many excellent tutorials on the web.
Creating an RSS file
RSS works on the concept of channels and items. To put this into perspective, think of a television station. Channel 10 is one channel, yet shows different programs or items. Your website is the channel for your RSS feed and the news articles, blogs and stock prices you create are the items. All RSS software will ask you to input channel information and item information.
There are three main sections to an RSS file.
1. The Title
This is the website name/headline or title of an article.
2. The Description
This is a brief outline of the website/article and what the website/article is about.
3. The Link
This links back to the website/webpage where the article is stored on.
So, the three sections for an RSS feed about movie reviews might look like this:
Channel
Title - Great Movie Reviews
Description - Get the latest reviews on all the best movies
Link – www.the greatmoviereviews.com.au
Item
Title – War of the worlds
Description – Aliens invade earth in this action packed sci-fi adventure
Link -ww.greatmoviereviews.com.au/waroftheworlds.html
Some RSS creation software also allows you to add other features like an author, pictures or time of publication etc. It depends which one you use. Once you have created your channel and item information you will need to save this information as an .XML file. For this example, we will save this file to our desktop and call it review.xml. Most software has a ‘Create RSS’ Button that will automatically save your file as an .xml This file then needs to be uploaded to your server or file manager.
Now that you have created your RSS file, uploaded it to your server, and are ready to feed it to everybody’s RSS readers, how will you let everyone know you provide an RSS feed?
The most common way is to link your feed to a graphic. Most websites use this or Graphic. You can also use a plain text hyperlink. If you're not sure, try using all three.
Note
iSmart Create users; to hyperlink to a graphic, in design mode click the graphic you wish to hyperlink, click the link icon, choose file or download and then select the .xml file you have created.
Updating your Feed
You can have any amount of items in your feed; however, most RSS software programs limit the number of items to around ten. When you create a new item it will be added to your .xml file. Save this file and overwrite the original master .xml file you created.
For example; open your review.xml file in the RSS software, add a new item to it and then save it again as review.xml, thus overriding the old file. Re-upload this new file with additional content to your server or file manager and your feed will be updated.
Now that you have created an RSS feed, there are two more very important steps to take.
1. Validating your feed
2. Syndicating your feed
Validate your feed
This is a simple checking process to make sure your feed is working properly. The easiest way to check your feed is to cut and paste your feed address into a feed validating website.
The one I use is the aptly named http://feedvalidator.org This will tell you if your feed is valid and if not what needs to be fixed.
Syndicate your feed
Now that you have a feed going, it makes sense to add this to the growing list of RSS search engines out there. This will ensure that anyone trying to find RSS feeds about your topic will find your feed and hopefully add it to their reader. This process is similar to adding your website to search engines.
The last word
If you are not sure about the validity of RSS as a communication tool for your website, I suggest you use an RSS reader, get used to the idea and then move forward from there.
I do not believe RSS is going to be ‘the next big thing’ like some internet marketers are suggesting. I cannot see it replacing email, e-zines; blogs or websites. Video did not kill the radio star, email did not replace the post and the internet did not take over from the multiple channels of communication open to marketers.
I do believe RSS will provide another useful channel to communicate with customers; smart marketers will quickly add this to their online toolbox.
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