Small-Company-Growth

Google Reader is an RSS reader (Really Simple Syndication).

An RSS reader is a tool that allows you to subscribe to content-producing websites and have the content from all of your subscriptions show up on one page.

Example: I follow many marketing blogs but I do not have time to go to 50 different web pages per day.  To solve this problem, I subscribe to these blogs using Google Reader, then all of the articles from those blogs show up in one reading pane that I can easily scroll through.

An RSS reader allows you to be efficient in your daily treasure hunt for information.  You can use it for entertainment, perhaps subscribing to E! News, LOL Cats, and the Onion.  Or try using it to keep track of the news by subscribing to CNN and ABC News.  Most people have a niche hobby they want to keep up to date on.  I personally subscribe to the Redskins blog which gives me the inside scope on why the Skins still suck this year.

How do you get this to work?

If you have a Google account, which most of you do, you already have Google Reader.  From your Gmail screen, look to the top for a link that says ‘Reader.’

If you don’t have a Google account, you can easily get one for free or use another RSS reader (Yahoo for example has its own).  Once you find a website you want to subscribe to, look for this image:

This orange symbol is what most websites use as a link for setting up your subscription.  It will typically say “subscribe by RSS” or something similar.  Simply click the icon, and it will bring you to a new page.  That new page will ask you to choose which RSS reader you use.  Pick yours and that’s all there is to it.  Now you can read all of the articles from that website without leaving Google Reader.

Here are Five Tips for Getting the Most out of Google Reader:

1. Fly Through Articles. Use the ‘j’ and ‘k’ keys as a shortcut for scrolling through articles.  When you hit j, it will take you to the next article.  If you hit k, you will return to the previous article.  Use space bar to scroll through the article in sizable chunks.  If you subscribe to many blogs, you will not have the time to read every article.  Simply run through the articles using shortcuts, judge the article based on the title, then decide if it is worth your time.  For me, I probably stop on 1 out of 10 articles and actually read it.

2. Star your Favorites. Use the star feature as a bookmark.  When you are reading an article that you think will be useful in the future, click the little star in the top left corner of the pane next to the title.  It is an easy way to compile your favorite content, and it is great to have this list of articles for later.  When you want to access your starred content, click the sidebar icon that says ‘starred items.’

3. Follow and Share. At the end of each article, there are several buttons such as the ‘Like’ button and the ‘Email’ button that can help you spread content.  The button I use most is the ‘Share’ button.  By clicking this, you are allowing other Google readers that follow you to see the articles you are reading.  So for example, maybe I just discovered a video of the world’s longest basketball shot and I would like my friends to see it.  After clicking the share button, it now shows up in my followers’ readers.  To follow others and have them follow you back, you can people search by clicking on your ‘shared settings.’  However, I normally just share things with my friends that are already in my Google contacts.

4. Retweet. Another great way to spread your favorite articles is by retweeting.  For you Twitter users, you know that retweeting is taking somebody else’s tweet, copying it, and tweeting it yourself.  Many bloggers now include a retweet button directly on their article.  It will look like this:

So if you are reading an article on your Google Reader and you want to tweet about it, just hit that button.  You don’t have to leave your reader, or worry about the URL of the article being too long for your tweet.  This retweet function will take care of everything for you.

5. Analyze Trends. Just like any other Internet tool, we must take time to decide whether this tool is actually helpful.  After using Google Reader for a while, click on ‘Trends’ in the Sidebar.  You will find some cool data here that will tell you which blogs to continue following.  Which blogs did you read the most, which blogs did you star the most, and how many posts does each author publish per day?  After knowing the answers to these questions, you will be able to eliminate distracting content and focus on your best sources.

The best way to get to know a tool is to just try it.  So, assuming you are at work right now and need to look busy without actually doing work, try Google Reader out.  Subscribe to a few blogs and you will start to understand the usefulness of RSS.

Filed under: Social Media by Sean McVey | Social tagging: google reader > rss