When I told some people about how I want to reduce my social media use and instead return to using my blog, they asked, “how will we find your blog if you’re not always on social media?”

Well, I hate to say it but if you’re relying on social networks for you to find different blog posts and other content, then you’re going to miss out on a whole heap of things.

Thing is, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever social network you use, it’s unlikely they’ll display all the content you think you’re subscribed to or following simply because of the sheer volume of posts. The best thing you can do is to put some semblance of control.

If you’re relying on social networks to serve you up the content you want to read – you’re not in control.

As such I have been using RSS Feeds for many years and using Feedly Pro as my feed reader. I used Feedlt PRO + (which uses the AI engine that searches from within the content to further refine the content) until I realised I don’t need it and instead can do it myself through filtering on ‘tags’ and ‘categories’ of some WordPress blog posts I follow.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for ‘really simple syndication; and is a program designed for systems to make content ‘pleasant to look at’ as well as stay up to date with your favourite news, content host or blogger. You can add feeds from pretty much any website – including YouTube (if you don’t want to miss the videos from your favourite YouTuber).

How to Add RSS Feeds to Your Email Service

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up with your favourite blogger (like me?) in a Reader. There are a variety of different readers out there and I use Feedly Pro + as I mentioned but if you don’t want to open another service like this, then do you know you can add it to your Outlook or Gmail service? That is, if you’re using email, and you don’t feel comfortable subscribing to peoples newsletters (after all, that’s another option of never missing out), RSS feeds to email are the next best thing.

Here’s how to add RSS to Outlook.

How to Add RSS Feeds to Your Blog

You can also add blog feeds to your own blog.

For example, my blog (this one here) is powered by WordPress. If I wanted to create a blog roll that has different feeds related to categories or tags dependent on the content I share, I can add these here. It will make your life a lot easier.

For example, I write A LOT of blog posts. I’m writing in my blog nearly every single day but you may not be interested in every post. However, every post I create is categorised and tagged.

Therefore, you can FILTER the RSS feeds to ONLY find blog posts of certain categories and tags that you’re interested in. That way, only blog posts related to say, “SOCIAL LEARNING” or “MICROSOFT” or whatever, comes to you. It’s a great way to manage the influx of articles and blog posts that come your way especially if you are following general article sites such as Harvard Business Review. (Of course, you can just buy a subscription to a service that does this for you such as Feedly Pro + with the AI engine if you really wanted to).

For example, to access my feed that you can then add to your feed reader, simply copy the following URL

www.activatelearning.com/feed

To access posts on category: Yammer (all posts I’ve written about Yammer) use this URL instead:

www.activatelearning.com/category/yammer/feed

You get the drift. You can also filter through tags as well. So basically what this means is that through your filtering, you see what you want to see. You won’t be overwhelmed by content that may be irrelevant to you.

Finding RSS Feeds for YouTube Videos

You can do the same with YouTube videos and playlists rather than subscribing to a multitude of different channels (YouTube is horrendous for being able to categorise videos) so this overcomes it all.

Check out this video for more information on how to find the RSS for YouTube videos and playlists:

Are RSS Feeds Still Relevant?

To many people, I’m may be a bit of an old fashioned kook because I still use them religiously but the truth is, I wouldn’t be finding great content and sharing it to you if I was just relying on my social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn to serve this content up to me. After all, my networks are reading similar content, retweeting and sharing the same stuff. An RSS Reader allows me to control what is coming to me but also is flexible enough for me to add to or delete feeds as my interests change. I can also do key word searches in the content so it’s like having my own “personal Google site” that I built only with content from people and networks, I know, like and trust.

So yes, I’d say there ARE relevant – even more so in this day and age.

So in response to the people who say, “but Helen, what if I miss your blog posts on social media?” Here you go:

1. Copy this URL www.activatelearning.com/feed
2. Go to your Outlook, RSS Feeds to add a new RSS Feed
3. Paste the above link

There you have it, you have access to my website blogs. Alternatively, you can just sign up to the newsletter.