RSS Feeds and EveryoneSocial

Wouldn’t it be great to save time curating content to post in EveryoneSocial for colleagues to share with their networks? Colleagues can have the most recent information to read and share, giving them a social advantage for being known as knowledgeable and current on affairs, without Admins and Moderators spending hours each week finding relevant content. This is made possible using RSS Feeds to source Group content.

What is an RSS feed

Really Simple Syndication feeds, aka RSS feeds, are designed to pull website content, such as blogs and podcasts, and display the content elsewhere in chronological order, with the newest listed first. RSS feeds are text files usually hosted by the site to pull the content from. RSS feeds are accessed via a URL that an RSS reader uses to read the RSS feed and display its content.

You will need to copy and paste the URL into an RSS reader for it to pull the latest content automatically. 

What does an RSS feed look like

EveryoneSocial’s Group Source feature reads the RSS feed and displays basic information about the content, such as the title, meta description, content's link, and any accompanying image.

Here’s what an RSS feed’s text file will look like. Curious how to test or troubleshoot an RSS feed? Check out this article on RSS troubleshooting.

Here’s what RSS feed content will look like after the RSS reader reads the content. Content pulled from an RSS feed will have the URL displayed on the top left, with the post directly below the URL. See below.

🔹Note the content in EveryoneSocial does not have a user attributed as the author on the top left of the content card but instead shows the domain-source.

How can I find an RSS feed?

Many websites have an RSS feed readily available for you. Once you find a website with ideal content for a Group, look for an orange icon with the letters RSS or XML. 

These icons can be found on the site's footer or in blog articles. Once you see the icon, click it to access the XML file, copy the URL from the address bar, and paste it into Group Sources.

If you do not see an RSS feed icon, there are two actions that can be taken. 

  1. Perform an online search: Most companies will have an article on how to find an RSS feed, if one exists. For example, if you use Medium and want to find an RSS feed, search for "Medium RSS feed" and use their instructions on how to get an RSS feed. 
  2. Use an online service: Use an online service to find an RSS feed. We recommend starting with feedburner.com. Simply enter a website’s URL to see if Feedburner can generate an RSS feed for the website.

Some URLs are incompatible with Feedburner, and an RSS feed can not be generated, usually due to the file size or an incompatible file format. In that case, try an alternative RSS feed generator like RSS.app or FetchRSS.com.

Can’t find an RSS feed? Try Zapier’s tips on How to Find the RSS Feed URL for Almost Any Site.

Google Alerts as an RSS feed

Use Google Alerts to set up an RSS feed. Google Alerts builds an RSS feed for a keyword search.

  1. Go to Google Alerts.
  2. Enter the keyword to use.
  3. Add filters.
  4. Select RSS Feed from the Deliver To drop-down.
  5. Click the RSS feed icon.

  6. Copy the URL in the address bar.

Why use this instead of the keyword functionality for Group Sources? Google Alerts allows keyword sources to be filtered using multiple keywords, locations, and news types. For example, configure a Google Alert RSS feed for company name + cybersecurity and Google Alert’s RSS feed would present content with those keywords.

Add a Youtube Channel RSS feed

Use a Youtube Channel's content to feed content to EveryoneSocial. All you need is the channel ID. If you own the channel, Google has detailed instructions to find the ID in the channel settings. 

If you do not own the channel, here are the steps to take to find a channel ID.

  1. Go to the Youtube channel.
  2. Copy the URL from the address bar.
  3. Use an online service to find the channel ID. We use Comment Picker in the GIF below.

  4. Add the channel ID to the RSS feed URL:

    https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=THE_CHANNEL_ID_HERE

  5. Enter the RSS feed URL as a Group's automated source. 

That's it!

Add an RSS feed to EveryoneSocial

Add the RSS feed to the Group’s settings as a Source. EveryoneSocial will automatically add the 10  most recently published pieces of content in the last 30 days.

Click here to learn how to add an RSS feed as automated Group content.

Best Practices

🔹 Only use quality RSS feeds

Content added should always benefit your team and help improve your company’s brand. Everyone should be able to log in and see content that answers “What’s In It For Me?”. This leads us to our next best practice.

🔸 Quality over quantity

If you’re following another best practice for sourcing content, you’ll also require Group Moderators and Admins to approve content. Don’t inundate them with RSS feeds that pull in large quantities of content a day. RSS feeds are designed to automate work. If approval is required to ensure quality content is delivered, it should take time to review the content. On average, let’s say the entire process to access the approval tab, review, and approve the content takes 3 minutes. That means it will take your team 30 minutes to review automated content daily for just 10 pieces of content. If users also submit content, add 3 minutes for each submission, and approval time quickly compounds. Therefore, we recommend researching quality RSS feeds first to ensure you have quality content before pulling it into your EveryoneSocial Workspace.

🔹 Source 3 - 5 pieces of content

A good goal is to add 3-5 pieces of quality content in each Group daily. This ensures your team will stay interested in accessing the Workspace and reviewing content, giving them more sharing opportunities. Not everyone will want to share the same pieces of content, so be sure to mix it up!

Here are some suggested ideas for RSS feeds. A Google search of "<favorite new sources> RSS feed" will often yield valuable results, too!

  • Company-branded feeds
    • Company news
    • Blog posts
    • Industry news
    • Press releases
    • Job postings

🔸 Test your RSS feeds

Before activating an RSS feed, test the feed by opening the URL in a separate browser tab. This will help you confirm how often this feed is updated. If the feed is updated every few minutes all day, bringing this into an Admin’s approval queue would not be recommended. It will flood that queue with too much content, which would require more work on the Admin’s part to sift through the feed to find quality content to provide for the program.

Do you need some example RSS feeds to use for testing? These work well—and might just become a permanent source of content for your team.

Troubleshooting and other questions?

RSS is a powerful tool, but it can be a finicky bugger. If you need help troubleshooting RSS, we've got you covered right here.

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