الثلاثاء، 14 مايو 2013

Making the Most of FeedBlitz: Integrating Third Party Content

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Making the Most of FeedBlitz: Integrating Third Party Content

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my vacation – and what came before it – has helped me realize that it's time for some changes. And change is good. We're going to be introducing some new content here on the blog, including webinars, guest bloggers, and more. One thing I wanted to do is have a set day where we share some of the great insights from our guides and manuals. You can download them fully, but if you prefer, follow along every other Thursday for highlights.

Now, I recognize that today isn't Thursday. It's Tuesday. But in the spirit of change, we wanted to get you started with two installments this week. So come on back this Thursday, and every Thursday thereafter, to learn more about what Feedblitz can do for your organization.

So, you’ve either already switched to FeedBlitz, or are considering it. The big question will be – where to begin? And that is a question only you can answer, I'm afraid. You will know your audience, your site and your business much better than us, after all. We’re here to help facilitate your switch, and provide you with all the information you need to get started, and keep moving forward.

FeedBlitz Flexibility

One of the great things about FeedBlitz's RSS feed functionality is how flexible it is. Which, of course, is one of the challenges: There's a lot to figure out, and it can be daunting!

Which brings me to splicing and dicing (well, splicing actually – dicing is in the next chapter on). Splicing is the process of merging other content into your main feed so that what your subscribers end up with is more than just your source feed.

Accessed via the "Add Other Feeds" button from your RSS feed's home page, you can add content from your other social media channels to your feed, or incorporate any other RSS feed into your posts. You can therefore enrich the RSS subscriber's experience by merging multiple content feeds into one.

Merge and Cross-Promote

For social networks, all you have to do is identify your account. For example, my YouTube channel is at youtube.com/phollows. To include my YouTube channel's feed into the FeedBlitz RSS feed, I simply enter "phollows" in the box next to the YouTube icon on that screen. It's the same idea for all the other social networks too. For any arbitrary third party RSS feed, simply specify the RSS feed URL in the "Service ID" field on the form. It's a great way to merge and cross-promote different blogs into a single feed, for example.

The drop down on the right tells you how you want the posts inserted into the main feed. A daily list that pulls all the content from the relevant feed, a daily summary that is a bulleted list of titles only, or by merging the third party content into your feed in chronological order.

Now, sometimes feeds can get very large. FeedBurner would simply give up when that happens, but instead FeedBlitz will include all new posts up to the RSS feed size limit we impose. If that content consists entirely of spliced in third party content, FeedBlitz extends the feed until at least one of the "main" feed's posts has been included.

And that’s that! Watch this space on Thursday, and every other Thursday to come, for more on making the most of your FeedBlitz account.

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