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Lee Lefever creates these wonderful videos that take what can be complicated tools and concepts, turning them into easy to understand primers. His first (or least first massively popular) video was RSS in Plain English. So this video on Google Reader is a great companion.
I recommend Google Reader to my clients as the best and easiest way to begin engaging in an “outward facing” web strategy. Google Reader is an effective tool to manage the first step, listening to others. It’s ability to easily extend this effort by sharing with others is another key benefit. The next step is to begin participating by commenting on some of the posts you read. I’ve started using Google Reader’s tag folders to sort my feeds into a few groups. My first group includes those bloggers I find most compelling and that I intend to read more thoroughly and potentially comment on more frequently. I can then scan the rest of my feeds a bit more quickly, sifting for a few nuggets here and there.
This video is an excellent overview of Google Reader. Chris Butler also wrote a great Web Smart newsletter on RSS and Google Reader with valuable tips. Take a look, and if you aren’t using RSS go ahead and grab a free account and get started. (I also embedded the original RSS video below.)
If you’re in advertising and marketing there is just a ton of information you need to stay up on. Keeping up with the changes in marketing and advertising in general can overwhelm you. Not to mention remaining a relative expert in each of your clients industries. AgencyCritique is one site/blog that can help you keep up. But there are many others. It would be impossible to visit each of these sources every day to see if there is new content you should peruse. RSS is the only way to keep up with the significant amount of content you need to be aware of. RSS brings the content to you. I wrote a Web Smart newsletter for Newfangled about RSS a couple years ago and Chris Butler wrote an excellent update with helpful tips and a walk through of how he uses RSS.
RSS is probably the most important and necessary tool set, which is surprisingly unused by many. If your not using RSS please read the two newsletters above and get set up with Google Reader. You may also want to check out many other pages I’ve tagged “RSS” in de.icio.us. Not sure what del.icio.us is? Well, that’s another blog post. If you’re feeling overwhelmed already you may need to hire me.
For more information, here are a couple videos by Lee LeFever that provide an excellent overview of RSS and Google Reader.
