THINKing

Socialize With Us

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, let me say I appreciate the time you spend with us and your thoughtful comments on this blog. We are here to listen as well as speak to our peers and customers. You can subscribe to our blog via Feedburner.

Beyond this blog, My Creative Team is sociable in other ways. So, feel free to join our conversation through our other social media vehicles. Here’s how:

You can follow MyCreativeTeam on Twitter, or become an MCT fan at Facebook. We have a Friendfeed, or you can stumble along with us via StumbleUpon.

My Creative Team’s award-winning monthly enewsletter, Think, is another way to follow us.  Sign up here.

We love social media and believe every company should be using these tools to connect with their key audiences. What do you think? How can we do a better job connecting with you?

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Sending Out An RSS

Photo By photopia (Flickr)

RSS is a friend of mine. Subscribing to feeds helps me keep current on a wide variety of blogs and topics. So, today I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on using RSS.

Now, I have a number of blogs I keep up with, like those of my digital colleagues Jason Falls (RSS feed) and Rodger Johnson (RSS feed), to mention a couple. Instead of visiting their sites ever day, I subscribe to their feeds and have the information come to me. Feel free to subscribe to this blog’s feed.

I’ve started using the new browser from Flock and have found it an excellent tool for keeping up with key feeds. It’s Firefox on steroids. But that is a topic for another day.

Now, another tactic is to use Google’s blog search for terms or phrases you follow. For instance, I follow the phrase “stumbleupon marketing“. So, type in your term under Google’s blog search. When the results come up, you’ll see in the left hand column about halfway down is the word “Subscribe”. Below that is the word “RSS” hyperlinked. Click on that and you’ll be subscribed to the search. Anytime it changes, you’ll be automatically updated.

How are you using RSS?

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Your Eyes Are Getting Heavy…

Yes, your eyes are getting heavy thanks to my patented digital hypnosis technique. I’m hypnotizing you so that you will do my bidding. There are several actions I want you to take. Let’s review while you are still under the spell:

- Sign up for my monthly email newsletter, Think

- Sign up to receive blog updates via Feedburner

- Use the Madkast button beside THINKing headlines to spread the word about this blog to your colleagues interested in marketing, advertising, PR and social media

- View my LinkedIn profile page and add me to your network

Thank you. Now, you will wake refreshed.

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My Big List Of Marketing Lists

Do you have a list of good marketing related resources? If so, please comment on my list so we can build a really incredible list of marketing lists. I’ll go first with the evolving Big List:

Top 29 Social Media Sites That Send Traffic

Top 16 RSS Links To Get You Started

List Of Blog Review Traders

Marketing & Advertising Resource List

Publicity Resource List

Top 11 Free Photo Resources For Bloggers

Top 5 Links For Writing Creative Briefs

Top 7 Links To Kickstart Your Leads

11 Social Media Links You Should Use

Email Marketing Resource Guide

Resources For Search Marketing & Blogging

Online PR Resource List

110 Resources For Creative Minds

Larry Chase’s Marketing Resource Directory

List of 50 Free Press Release Sites

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Subscribe To THINKing

If you are a regular reader of THINKing, consider signing up to receive this via our Feedburner RSS or by email. Visit here to get signed up.

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RSS 101 – Top 16 Links To Get You Started

RSS is a great way to ensure the quality content you want is delivered to you and not into your spam folder. But many computer users still have not embraced this organizational tool. So, I thought I’d put together a post on all you need to know about RSS.

Let’s start with the RSS consumer first. According to RSS Basics,

RSS is a defined standard based on XML with the specific purpose of delivering updates to web-based content. Using this standard, webmasters provide headlines and fresh content in a succinct manner. Meanwhile, consumers use RSS readers and news aggregators to collect and monitor their favorite feeds in one centralized program or location. Content viewed in the RSS reader or news aggregator is place known as an RSS feed.

Now that you have the basic terminology, here is a tutorial on how to get started using RSS. Tutorial Contents:

1. Definition of RSS Feeds
2. What goes in the feed?
3. What can a feed do for you?
4. How are feeds different from e-mail?
5. How do people read feeds?
6. How do you find the feeds you want to subscribe to?
7. How RSS helps your search engine visibility
8. Who is reading feeds?
9. Putting Your Web content in a Feed
10. Where Are We Feeds Headed?
11. More RSS Resources

Marketers, I think, aren’t engaging consumers through RSS because they feel the volume isn’t there. But it is. More than 6 million Americans consume media and news through RSS, according to a Pew poll.

This volume, while not as high as email, offers real advantages to the marketer. For one, it gives marketers an uncensored channel to the consumer. Robyn Tippins of Yahoo! riffs on the topic in a video interview with PodTech.

BONUS LINKS:

RSS – Best of the Web?

RSS Resources

RSS Strategy

RSS Feeds For The Rest Of Us

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Let Your Blog Speak For Itself

Talkr is a free Web 2.0 service that lets your blog speak for itself.

If your blog has a machine readable feed – thats typically one in RSS or Atom format – Talkr will pull your feed into its system where it is processed and output using speech simulation technology. Then, your audience can subscribe to the audio, download it onto their mp3 player and take you on the road with them.

So, instead of having to sit down and record your own blog posts, a computer does it for you. Admittedly, the voice quality is robot-like, but this is a small price to pay for the opportunity to expand your blog’s reach.

I’m using my Feedburner feed, sending it to Talkr and then offering the podcast as another subscription option here under our Subscribe to THINKing page.

You may subscribe using this button below.

Listen to this post as an mp3 file.

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RSS Alert – FeedBurner Offers New Self-Service Advertising Model

FeedBurner announced a new self-service advertising option for advertisers. It uses their headline animator service and so basically anyone who has a feed hosted with FeedBurner can push it out to other sites that are part of the FeedBurner ad network. It’s like a live AdWords alternative.

FeedBurner Offers New Self-Service Advertising Model – CenterNetworks – News, Reviews, Insights and Interviews

Here’s a good overview of how to develop your own RSS headline animator.

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RSS Resources

BNET is a great source for business information of all types. I read it regularly. Here is a link to BNET’s RSS tagged information.

RSS Resources on BNET

In other RSS news, here is an excellent list of RSS and Blog directories, and here is some additional RSS information from Search Engine Watch.

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RSS Strategy

I’m still a big fan of email marketing despite the problems – like deliverability – that surround email. It is a great way to communicate with interested customers and prospects. Email, however, is a push strategy. Marketers and PR professionals need some pull, and that is where RSS – really simple syndication – comes into play.

This article on RSS_strategy provides food for thought as you prepare your RSS program. We’ll write more on this topic later.

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