I love you, Really Simple Syndication. And I love you too, Atom. And if you are a social media marketer, an SEO or just someone who is tracking a company's online presence, then you probably feel the same way. Using RSS feeds to consolidate sources of information is nothing new to most marketers, but I figured I would write this for those who have not yet discovered the power of RSS.

Thanks to RSS, I can track everything from one location. No need to open up 20 bookmarks; just sit back and scroll. This helps in four major ways:

• decreasing reaction time
• increasing productivity
• improving reputation monitoring
  
• simplifying reporting

Here are a few ways to accomplish this through RSS:

1. Find relevant questions on Yahoo! Answers and become an expert in your field. No need to sort through millions of questions; just run a search using whatever terms you are concerned by and subscribe to the RSS feed for that search.

 

2. Stop wasting time on Twitter and get more relevant followers. Using Twitter search, (when it's working) subscribe to a search feed to seek out people who you may want to interact with on Twitter, or monitor what they are saying about your brand. (Various Twitter apps can also accomplish this feat.) This helps getting followers that you really want, not just random people who are not within your target demographic.

3. Get your profile noticed on YouTube and Flickr. Stay abreast of new video and photo uploads by conducting a search and become very responsive to new, relevant content. This will improve your profile visibility by making you a big player in a niche community. To easily create a Flickr RSS search feed, you can use this tool.

 

 

4. Find out what content users are bookmarking. Delicious bookmarks of your site can be considered mini conversions. Behind every bookmark is also a visitor who may return later because they found some use on the page (hopefully not just to mock the design of your website). Conduct a search for one or more URLs to see what comments and tags are being used to describe them. You can also find your competitors, informational resources, or new arenas for showcasing your expertise by subscribing to relevant tags that are being used to describe other popular URLs. All Delicious.com search results can be made into RSS feeds.

 

 

5. Easily monitor blogs and news sources. Besides the relevant blogs and news sources that you are already subscribed to, it is not a bad idea to subscribe to search feeds for your target terms via Google Blog and News Search. Also consider running a variety of Technorati searches for posts, blogs, photos, and videos.

What is important to keep in mind when subscribing to your RSS feeds is to use Boolean searching or advanced search options to help you. It is important not to exclude too much while keeping the level of irrelevant results to a minimum. Finding the perfect balance will take time and patience.

So YOUmozzers, what are some ways in which feeds make you better at what you do? (Besides subscribing to your favorite blogs.)