Over the past few months I have not only started to become an active blogger, I’ve also become an active blog reader. In fact, like most blog readers and posters, much of my daily knowledge and inspiration comes from other blogs far more than news media. And, like most – I use an RSS aggregator to combine all the RSS feeds from the many blogs I do read into a single view.
Ask any communications professional (or journalist for that matter) who has had to research multiple sources and pull press clips about the value of RSS and it’s obvious that the appeal stretches far beyond just blogging. It’s hard to imagine a client press room that we wouldn’t recommend adding an RSS feed to … it’s become a no brainer. The "RSStocracy" is a great term coined by Alex Samuel and described at www.alexandrasamuel.com/rsstocracy. The site offers a useful introduction to the power of RSS and encourages each of us to "start spreading the newsreader."
It raises an important point about the potential of RSS. More than any blogging strategy clients may ask us for, perhaps it’s time for PR agencies to also offer RSS strategies to get our clients to take the first step into this new world of individually filtered news. After all, what better way to cut through the clutter or reach journalists than to enable them to opt-in to get your latest releases and news?
