Twitter and RSS Feeds Exposed

Recently I wrote a few posts that have resulted in several people ask me, “What exactly is it and how does it apply to me?” This post is an attempt at explaining the use of something called Twitter as a marketing tool. This post is also going to explain what an RSS feed is and why you should be promoting YOUR RSS Feed.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro blogging platform. It allows you to let anyone following you know exactly what it is you are doing in under 140 characters. It is quick and easy to set up and you can even take Twitter with you on your cell phone.

In order for Twitter to be successful for a Realtor you must have a large group of other Twitter users following you. Not just anyone mind you but instead other local Twitter users. If for example you are in Tucson Arizona then you might benefit by following the Twitter user with the username of tucsonactors. They in return have 33 followers of their own that might be other Tucson locals that you can follow.

Once you have a decent amount of people following you then this is where the real value comes into play. Let's say that you've worked hard at getting 150 local Twitter users following you. You've just posted a blog post on your AR blog about a controversial development being planned where you've stated the facts and then your own opinions. You can then Tweet the following, "Sunnyside Community Development; Good for Business or Bad? You Decide! Http://www..."

Or you can simply announce, "Open house today from 12 - 5. Come and see the house and meet a fellow Twitter user. 123 Applewood St."

You can also use Twitter to follow other Realtors both in your area and nationally. You'd do this to further expand your own education. Let's face it, one Realtor may be doing something you've never thought about but now that you've seen that Realtor Tweet a blog post about it you can learn something new. Further, establishing connections with Realtors around the nation may increase the chances of one of them contacting you when they have a referral to pass along.

RSS Feeds

An RSS Feed is kind of the equivilent of signing up to receive an e-mail alert whenever someone writes a new blog post. However it isn't quiet as bothersome because the person subscribing to the RSS feed chooses when s/he wants to browse their feeds. One of my feed lists looks like:

I subscribe to five different RSS Feeds with this particular Google Reader. These feeds are from blogs I visit the most often to keep sharp on Internet Marketing strategies, content writing advice and so on. These websites provide such great informtion for my every day work that I chose to follow via RSS.

Your blog has its own RSS feed. If you have an Outside Blog with AR then it is going to be; http://www.yourURL.com/rss. If you use other blogging platforms then you may need to do a little investigating to find it.

My blog rss feed is http://www.weeklyseo.com/rss. Take a look at it and you'll see a bunch of code that might make you think you messed up somewhere. However that is far from the truth because when that URL is added to a feed reader like Google Reader it shows up like what you see in the image above.

The idea is to promote your blog. You want as many people as possible subcribing to your blog so that they can keep track of your posts out of a million other bloggers. Adding a link to the bottom of each blog post that reads, "Subscribe to my Blog via RSS" is one such way of encouraging people to subrcrive. Adding the link to e-mails that you send out is another way to encourage people.

Now not everyone is going to know what the heck an RSS feed is or what to do with it... your reading this e-mail after all right? This is to be expected but there is a growing number of people who understand what to do with them and a growing number of websites that use them.

If you have a Google account and want to add your blogs RSS feed to a reader then log into your Google account and go to your igoogle page (http://www.igoogle.com). To the right hand side you'll see a link, "Add Stuff>>". Click that and do a search for Google Reader. When the results come back the Google Reader gadget should be the first on the list. Add it and return to igoogle.com.

Now click on 'Google Reader' which is the header for the gadget and you'll be taken to a page where you will see a link, "Add Subscription". Looks like this:

Click on 'Add Subscription' and enter in the RSS feed url of your blog. Or for practice purposes you can add mine which is http://www.weeklyseo.com/rss (hint hint).

Going back to igoogle.com will now display my most recent blog posts. Do any of them look catchy to you? Click on one and see what happens; might end up looking something like:

This is real basic stuff. The idea behind this part of the post is to give you some insight on why you should try to promote subscriptions to your RSS Feed. There are so many more uses of RSS feeds that are far more complex that I wouldn't be able to generalize for everyone.

Start by trying to subscribe to other people's RSS feeds. If you have a favorite blog or two that you follow every day then add their feed to your newly created Google Reader. Add your own feed to the reader even if you don't need an update for when you write a new post.

Once you feel comfortable subscribing to feeds then I think you can move forward with promoting your own feeds and building a userbase that follows your postings.

Finally please remember that in all of your posts you should be including...

"Subscribe to my Blog via RSS"

Most Recent Featured Post: 13 Steps to Effectively Promoting Your Blog

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Http://www.weeklyseo.com
Http://www.bloggingmothers.com