Great ideas in using RSS

August 16th, 2006

(source: “The Business Case for RSS”, R Hrastnik)

If you are reading this, it is probably safe to assume that you have a basic understanding of RSS, or at least know what it is.

Since discovering Newsgator and the use of RSS I have been fascinated with the potential applications of RSS for marketing.

One of the things I did was create a “client” feed using the clipping feature in Newsgator. The problem is of course that most of my clients don’t have RSS readers. So I used the “headlines” feature and published the headlines on the dedicated customer page where I store their work. But that’s abou as sophisticated I get.

I recently re-read an introduction to Rok Hrastnik’s book “Unleash the marketing power of RSS in PDF format (about 30 pages) and it has been a great read.

He starts with making the business case for RSS, i.e. penetration, opt-in nature etc, which is fine but I’m already sold. The best part of the article are his examples of how to apply it.

Considering the often longterm relationships of Business to business marketing RSS seems to be particularly appropriate to deliver relevant information in a format that is opt-in and non-intrusive. Some of the applications would be:

Product updates - its relevant to the audience and often time critical
Software updates - ditto
Catalogue publishing
Special offers and events
“Thought leadership” articles - write them or find feeds and re-publish

One of the key issues for business websites is meaningful and fresh content. They just don’t have the people/focus to publish regularly. So the potential to publish content from a partner, distributor etc without having to do anything must be very persuasive.

PS: just realised that I posted on this in October last year. Ah well, if it is good it deserves another go.