When it comes to monitoring popular information about your brand or your industry, some companies turn to the most popular elements including Google Alerts, Review Trackers or Radian6.
What most people fail to realize is that there’s another way to monitor your industry that is considered a valuable secret weapon: RSS feeds.
What are RSS feeds?
RSS feeds refer to taking web-based content and publish it in a standard format. It basically provides you with a summary of the topics, questions or posts that occurred on your favorite sites. For example, sites like LinkedIn, Quora, Pinterest and even Facebook can allow you to use RSS feeds. In most cases, an RSS feed will be sent to your email account, and you can easily peruse the topics and summaries of the day’s information, and if you want to read more, you can click on the link and travel to the website.
How can RSS feeds help me monitor my industry?
The Internet is a vast and ever changing place, and many people and companies within your industry are always publishing some type of content to the Internet. But since it’s so vast, it’s possible that you will overlook their post, and this means that you can lose out on popular and important information.
When you use an RSS feed, though, you will have all of the information from your preferred sites delivered right to you. For example, if you enjoy the articles on Quora and if they are relevant to your industry, you can sign up for the RSS feed and have all the info sent to you. This way, instead of sitting on the site all day watching as updates pour in, you can peruse the titles and summaries when you have time and read those that interest you. This way, you can pay extra attention to those that are important to you, and you don’t run the risk of not seeing it.
How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?
Most sites will have an RSS icon on their website. All you have to do is click on it and follow the designated steps by the site. Sometimes, all you’ll need to do is provide an email address, but some sites may allow you to choose which type of content you receive. This way, if the site discusses technology, social media and marketing, and you’re only interested in social media, you can sign up to only receive the information that pertains to social media.
How does this benefit me?
Using RSS feeds allows you to stay on top of popular trends in your industry and learn what other industry leaders are saying. As a businessperson, you know that there is something new for you to learn every day, and you just may learn something new from the information you receive in your RSS feed. Plus, you may even be able to find out what your competitors are up to or what new tactics they’re employing, and this can help you stay competitive.