Last week in my post “Pittsburgh Startups are Silent on the Internet”, I told you I was going to go over three tips to help you have a voice online. This week I am going to cover Press Releases / RSS. This will help you take the PR you are already doing and make it more accessible to new media types.
Before I dive in to this, I want to make sure you have an understanding of what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is and how it can help you. To do that, I found a great little video on YouTube that explains this very well.
After watching the video I think you get the idea why RSS is so important, it’s distribution. Using RSS for your Press Releases will make it easier for your customers and the media in your niche find your news.
The PR Company you hired to write the Press Release most likely sent it out on a news wire service, but that’s not good enough. If you’re a new company, chances are your Press Release will not be picked out from the large pool of news found on those services. Having your own RSS feed puts your news in the hands of the people that want to cover it.
Here are some ways to create a Press Release feed:
- Easy Way – If you use a content management system (CMS) chances are you already have the ability to publish a RSS feed. Check with your webmaster or read documentation to find out. Also, if you use a PR service they could help you with setting up a feed.
- Not So Easy Way – You can also you a program like Feed 4 All to manually create a RSS feed. It’s time consuming to set it up the first time, but once it’s done, all you have to do is keep it updated.
- Hard Way – If you are comfortable with HTML you can use a RSS example and plug in your information. I would not recommend using this method.
If you have any questions or feedback about this topic please share them via comments below. Also, if you have any other ideas on how companies can easily start using RSS let us know.
Next week I will cover Business Blogging and answer the question, “To blog or not to blog”?
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