When I’m trying to persuade a missionary to create a blog, there’s a certain aspect I always mention. And strangely enough, it seems to be an aspect that most missionary bloggers overlook. And yet it’s sitting there in most blogging software, waiting to be used. In the months to come, people around the world will be making better and better use of it. But what will you be doing with your news feed?
My what?! Yes, you know – the news feed. RSS – atom – syndication – all those things. If I’m still speaking Greek to you, you need to read on and find out exactly what it is and how you should be using it.
Imagine – you have an urgent prayer request. You put it into your blog, and instantly a message pops up on someone’s computer on the other side of the world, reminding them to pray. Imagine – your blog’s latest headlines instantly updated on the website of your home church. It’s free, and it’s easy.
You see, most blogging software has a news feed built in. It’s like a specially formatted version of your blog that is intended to be read by a special program, called a news reader. If I have 20 blogs I’m reading, the news feed allows me to collect them all into one place, instantly updated. Your supporters need to know that you have a news feed available.
There are a lot of issues related to RSS that I won’t cram into this blog entry. But here’s what you need to do, in short:
There’s lots to learn here, so we’ll take it one step at a time. But be sure readers know how they can subscribe to the feed, that’s a great place to start, even if you don’t yet understand all the ins and outs. As the months go by, we’ll be reading more and more blogs. The news feed is the only way we’ll be able to keep track of all our friends. After all, who has time to actually visit so many websites? We want the blogs to come to us!
Ready to learn more? Here’s an in-depth article on creating and promoting your feed (from a business perspective, but very helpful for you). The article covers topics like which programs can read a feed, why you should have it, and what it is. For technical basics and history, try this Wikipedia article on RSS.
A few examples, as always: See if you can find the feeds on these blogs…
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