PRESSfeed, the enterprise RSS content syndication tool created for PR and marketing professionals, re-launched its Enterprise RSS Promotion blog this month. Updated to the latest version of WordPress, the new look is based on the template created by http://www.highlandsbydesign.com and modified to reflect the PRESSfeed brand by Steve Scavo of 35mmdesign.com The new look also offers social bookmarking of the blog posts to digg and del.icio.us in keeping with the social media elements embedded in the PRESSfeed system. “Since PRESSfeed is on the forefront of assisting PR and marketing folk to integrate social media and content syndication into their communication strategies, we wanted our blog to reflect what we do,” said Joel Morris, CTO of PRESSfeed. Launched in April 2005 at the Media Relations Conference, PRESSfeed has kept pace with the fast pace of social media development online. In 2006 the hosted enterprise version of the service was released and in August at the Search Engine Strategies show tagging and social media bookmarking was added. A recent Pew Internet Foundation survey found nearly one in three individuals consumes RSS feeds. But for enterprises, the most telling response was that 63 percent of these RSS users subscribe to work-related feeds. This figure is supported by another study from BlueStreak that found 28 percent of web users subscribe to RSS feeds As far back as July 2005, when adoption rates were as low as 12 percent, Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li stated in a report "Even if it's something as simple as putting press releases in an RSS feed, marketers will benefit from early exposure to distributing information via RSS — and receive valuable feedback from key constituents on what types of content they would like to have." As we move through 2007 creating and publishing content in RSS feeds is no longer something to have on the back-burner. It should be an integral part of every company’s marketing and communication strategy.
Sally Falkow is founder and co developer of PRESSfeed, an RSS service for marketing and PR use. She is co-author of The Power of Online Syndication in Public Relations. For more information on RSS visit http://www.press-feed.com.
