RSS Feeds are probably one of the most useful tools in the business industry.  Ironically, they are probably the most underused tool in the business industry.  Most people don’t even know what an RSS Feed is.  Now is the time to be enlightened. Are you excited? You should be.

If you’ve ever seen this image () on a blog, website, or even your Outlook dashboard, you have seen an RSS Feed subscription button.  RSS Feeds are basically electronic magazine subscriptions.  They allow you to keep tabs on the most current information whether it be your mom’s craft blog or the leading website in your industry.

You can subscribe to RSS Feeds using an RSS Feed Reader (which is free and requires little to no registration). Every time the website you’re subscribed to publishes something new, you will be notified of the new stuff in your Feed Reader. The perks?  You don’t have to memorize your favorite 100 website URL’s and manually bounce to them throughout the day wondering if they have published anything new in an attempt to stay current.  Just keep an eye on your feed!

The two most popular RSS Feed Readers are probably Outlook and Google Reader. (I prefer Google Reader because it contains some really cool features that most other Feed Readers don’t… but use what’s most convenient and easy for you. This is all about making things simple!)

Outlook's RSS Feed Reader

All you need to do to subscribe to a feed is watch for that little orange icon shown above (there’s one in the upper right hand corner of this site), and click on it.  That will take you a page that looks much like this:

RSS Feed Subscription Page

Select the reader that you would like to receive the RSS feed, and hit the “Subscribe Now” button.  Easy as that.  Now, what are you waiting for! Jump on that! Start subscribing. Just don’t get addicted.