Social Media Timesavers: RSS feeds & other little helpers
Posted by Jenise Fryatt on Tue, May 04, 2010 @ 06:22 PM
The following is a guest blog article by Liz King. If you are interested in guest blogging for Sound n' Sight, please read my guest blogging guidelines . And if you have any thoughts, please comment. Liz and I both would love to hear what you have to say!
Wouldn't it be nice if you had a little elf that could come by every day and make your life more simple? They could tell you all about everything being said about you on the web and even share all the important news from around the industry. While I can't promise you an elf, I CAN share with you a few tools that will simplify your life and save you time. Think of these tools as saving you from visiting many different sites and trying to hunt down information you need. It's REALLY SIMPLE. Like - Really Simple Syndication.
According to Wikipedia,
"RSS (most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format."
Still lost? That's ok. RSS feeds are much more simple than you probably think they are. In a nutshell, RSS feeds bring updates from all the blogs and websites you follow into one place. This, of course, saves you from having to visit each site several times a day.
To find an RSS feed, look for that little orange square picture in the address bar of your browser. Click on it and then copy the URL. Then, paste it into your favorite aggregator like Google Reader. Once you've set this up, you can go directly to Google Reader to see all the updates from your favorite sites. It's like reading a newspaper specifically designed for you!
Are you working on a blog article and need to do research? What if you are trying to keep track of each time your company name comes up on Google? Google Alerts are your solution to the endless battle with search engines. Google Alerts allow you to set up alarms for various keyword searches. Each time those keywords pop up in a search, Google will let you know via email on a daily or weekly basis. You can create as many alerts as you'd like to keep tabs on all the things important to you.
To clarify, you want to use Google Reader for blogs and websites that you already read. Google Alerts will help you find fresh content based on search engine results. This may include an article published about your favorite author or a review of your business on Yelp.
I'd suggest you set up alerts for the following:
To see what is being posted about you and your brand:
- Your name
- Your company name
- Your website/blog
To stay up-to-date on industry trends:
- Your industry
- Companies you are interested in (for job seekers)
- People you follow professionally
- Professional Associations you belong to
I encourage you to take some time today to set these up. These will provide you with fresh information to tweet and will ensure that you are at the forefront of your industry. Keep track of the time you save and use that time to tweet :)
Liz King, owner of Liz King Events has been in the events business since 2003 and has produced events such as Media Networking Night at Columbia University, Living It Up at Metro Community Church, and many other corporate and social events.
In addition to planning, Liz is very involved with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks to promote events and collaborate with other event professionals. She maintains her personal social network and also helped to launch Columbia University's Center for Career Education Facebook and Twitter accounts in 2008. She currently works with staff to reach over 1,000 students through these tools.
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