What is RSS and Why Do You Care?

Posted by Laura Bergells

October 13, 2008

If you know all about RSS, skip this post. You won’t need it.

Otherwise:

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. If you see this icon in your browser address bar — or anywhere on a site — it is RSS enabled.

So what, you say. Big deal. Why the heck would you care? Two reasons:

If you’re interested in saving time and absorbing more relevant information, more quickly than ever before, then yeah. You should care.
Oh. And if you market a business or an organization online, then yeah. You should care.

Otherwise, seriously:

Skip. This. Post.

RSS is For Smart and Creative People. People who are passionate about spreading ideas are acutely interested in RSS! These kinds of folks love new ideas. They don’t just have new ideas or read new ideas: they also often want to share their ideas. So these creative, inspiring folks add fresh content to their sites. Specials maybe. Or perhaps they’re smart business folks who answer late-breaking, gotta-know questions. Or they clear up misconceptions. Or upload how-to videos. Or keep their public informed with an updated media area…

The point is: with RSS, smart people everywhere are interacting and responding with their online audiences of prospects and customers. The RSS-savvy build a base of subscribers who elect to hear more about what they have to share.

They’re participating in quality conversations that lead to trust. And relationships. And sales.

They’re not “marketing to” prospects.

They’re “talking with” customers. Interacting.

And that’s the power of RSS over static, do-nothing, portfolio / brochure websites.

So: if you don’t understand RSS, get hip quick.

Here’s how to get hip with RSS, in five ridiculously easy steps:

Get your bad self a free RSS reader. Try Google Reader. There are others, but Google is a trusted brand, so go there. Sign up. Start the account.
Find a site you like that is RSS enabled. This is not too tough, since most savvy businesses know to RSS enable their sites these days. This site, for example, is RSS enabled. You can see the icon in your browser bar. If you can’t see it there, it’s because you’re using some kind of weirdo browser. It’s OK. Just look for words like “Subscribe with RSS” or the icon that stands for “RSS” on a site. Once again, it often looks something like this, only smaller:
Click the RSS icon. You’ll get led to what’s known as “the feed” page. Often, this “feed” page will ask you if you want to subscribe. You do. Say yes by clicking the icon that says “Add to Google Reader”. If that’s not available, just copy the URL in the address bar and paste in into Google Reader where it says “Add Subscription”.
Ta-da. Consider yourself subscribed with RSS. Notice: you didn’t enter an email address, so subscribing with RSS is 100% spam-free! Hurray! You give up zero personal info to subscribe via RSS! You get all of the content you want, with no irritating side effects.
So go find more RSS sites to subscribe to. There are many ways to do this, but for starters, go to Alltop.com. This site is like a big magazine rack with “All Top” RSS feeds arranged by subject matter. Whether you’re interested in Autos or Zoology — you’ll find an RSS feed for topics you truly cherish.

OK, so at this point, you’re still saying “SO WHAT?” What the *#@%$$!! did I just do, and why do I care? Two BIG FAT RSS benefits:

First benefit: you just saved oodles of time while boosting your intelligence by the power of 100. Don’t believe me? Read on:

When you subscribe to the RSS enabled sites you’re interested in, you don’t have to waste time visiting every site trying to figure out if anything has changed! You visit your Google Reader. You scan your list of subscriptions. If your subscribed sites are un-bold, nothing new has happened. You move on. You don’t waste time. However, if something is bold, it stands out. Something’s new. You click. If the headline hints at something interesting, you read further. (Hint to business owners: learn to write compelling headlines and mouth-watering copy. Otherwise, you’re dead.)

Second benefit: it hits you like a high-voltage spark from the snappiest synapse in your noggin — your online survival depends not on having a flashy, gimmicky website, but one that provides compelling, relevant, helpful, and frequently updated stories and useful information for your visitors.

After you spend a few weeks scanning your RSS feeds, you really start to “get it”. The sites you trust are the ones that consistently give you quality, relevant, timely, and/or entertaining information. The sites that “market at” you are invisible. They’re little more than tired brochures that haven’t changed since 1999. And if they HAVE changed, you don’t know — because they aren’t on RSS. They aren’t on anyone’s radar!

And slowly but surely, these sites will die. Will the businesses they represent die with them?

Marketing 101: People don’t care about you — your product or services — until you’ve established what you can do for them. Use RSS to find and listen to experts you can trust. Then, think about how your own business can harness the power of RSS to spread your own expertise and authenticity.