RSS Information

Article Navigation

Click Here for more articles

Microsoft and Google Show It's Time for RSS Marketing

by: Rok Hrastnik

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

Many internet marketers are still wondering whether to start marketing with RSS or not. It seems that not even all the case studies, hard metrics and benefits available can�t convince them, or everyone would be jumping on the RSS wagon by now.

Just as an overview, here are some of the benefits marketers are missing out on by not marketing with RSS:

A] 100% delivery of their marketing, relationship building and educational messages to their subscribers, customers, prospects and partners. E-mail isn�t getting delivered, but with RSS you will achieve 100% delivery.

B] Increased search engine rankings and quick content indexing, and increased traffic from other RSS-enabled online sources.

C] Getting your internet content published on other websites.

D] Generating new subscribers more easily and quickly.

E] And much much more �

Even if you don�t believe that RSS is being used by enough people right now, that�s still no excuse to not start using it as a vehicle to generate more traffic to your sites.

But, soon all of this will change, too.

As it was widely predicted, Microsoft is integrating RSS support in the next version of its Internet Explorer, and perhaps even more important, it's making it an integral part of its long-awaited Longhorn operating system.

What does this mean for marketers?

A] By being integrated in IE and other Microsoft software, RSS will achieve mass penetration. For marketers this means that RSS will finally become one of the standard tools of mass communication and content delivery. Furthermore, internet users will start to expect RSS from marketers, probably even more so than e-mail newsletters.

B] Marketers will no longer (eventually, of course, when most of the world starts using the latest software versions) need to explain how to get an RSS reader, but will be able to focus only on presenting their business and benefits to the end-user.

C] Broader RSS integration in Microsoft's tools will enable for additional RSS uses, far beyond basic content delivery in the form of stories, podcasts and products. Marketers and developers will be able to deploy rich interaction applications to make communication and business/personal interaction more fluent, easier and more effective. In essence, for many advanced marketers the capability of marketing with RSS will mean their either �in� or �out� of the game.

D] This is now official. Marketers need to start taking the lead and implementing RSS feeds accross all their communicational innitiatives, from PR to direct marketing and sales.

And to top all of this, Google just recently started serving Google AdSense ads in RSS feeds as well.

The deeper meaning behind this is four-fold:

A] The new "program" is the perfect opportunity for RSS publishers to monetize their RSS feeds. With inclussion in Google's standard "runnings" of AdSense ads, publishers can expect to monetize on RSS immediately.

B] This is yet another reason for publishers to start publishing their content via RSS, especially since it won't cost them anything or very little, but will provide them with an additional source of revenues. With the low-cost aspect of RSS, we can expect a flood of new publishers to set-up RSS feeds of their content to generate additional AdSense clicks.

C] With RSS ads included in feeds, more advertisers will become aware of RSS and its marketing potential.

D] Using RSS advertising publishers are now not only creating an additional revenues source, but are in fact making sure they don't lose ad revenue opportunities.

We used to refer to RSS as the future. Well, that future is now. If you�re not ready to start marketing with RSS, time just might run you over. As well as your competitors �

About the author:
Rok Hrastnik is the author of �Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS�, acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts. The complete guide on RSS for marketers:

Circulated by Article Emporium

Read Articles:

Website Imperatives and Solutions

Avoid a Summer Sales Slump

Marketers on RSS: The Best Of

Top Five Lead Capture Tools & How They Work

Monitor and Increase Your Search Engine Visibil...

Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engin...

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Houses on Sand

What is Podcasting?

Why Wordpress is now my Blog of Choice

How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog

How a Multi-Faceted Approach to Site Promotion ...

5 Ways to Entice Your Parallel Market to Trade ...

Does your Website Sell or Smell?

How to get traffic to your website!

Business Blogging - 5 Tips to Help You Barrel T...

RSS and E-mail: How They Can Work Together?

Is Blogging and RSS ALL THAT? Yes, and a bag o...

NEWS FLASH! Article Directories JUMP-ON The RSS...

How To Make Over $20,000 Per Month

7 Profitable Ezine Publishing Tips

Update Your Websites Content 'Automatically' 24...

How To Build A Profitable Niche Site Within 27 ...

Top 6 Reasons for having a RSS feed - Come and ...

Should Affiliates Really Use Blogging and Pingi...

The Copyright Debate and RSS

What You Can Publish via RSS

Podcasting Trend

Is Blogging Necessary to Your Internet Business?

What is Creative Commons?

Promote Your Products Without Annoying Spam Fil...

More Best of From Marketers on RSS

RSS Directory Submission: The Key to Blog Promo...

RSS and Blog Marketing for Real Estate

Short Term vs Long Term Marketing Efforts

ClickZ.com Doesn't Get RSS Metrics - How We Rea...

What is Wiki?

5 New Internet Marketing Opportunities Through RSS

The KEY To A Winning Internet Marketing Strateg...

Is Your Business Podcasting? Well, It Should Be.

How affiliates can have their own radio show...

More Article Pages 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

This Static Spot is open for sponsor

This Static Spot is open for sponsor