If you want to get your content above the fray online, you first need to understand the fray. RSS is by far the best and most comprehensive tool for doing this.

RSS lets you survey a broad landscape of content with minimal effort. You can get a feel for what is good and bad. Then you can do even better.

Getting to know your audience

We’ve frequently discussed the importance of engaging in a channel before trying to promote yourself. Being a part of a community not only helps you learn the ropes and nuances of the channel and its users, it also shows that you’re an active participant.

Marketing is more than ever about engaging with your audience. Marketing at people in communities is like walking around saying, “Hey. Do you like me? Will you be my friend?” and not saying or doing anything to show that someone might enjoy your friendship. It really doesn’t work.

You may hear this and wonder how it is possible to engage in all the channels your work and your client work calls for — and still actually get some work done. It’s not easy, but it can be simple — RSS, really simple syndication.

RSS keeps you productive

If you don’t already use an RSS reader for news and alerts, you should. It brings all the feeds you want into one simple interface. I use Google Reader. Around the labs, other people use Google as well as email sends and browser tools in Firefox and Safari.

RSS improves your efficiency and productivity naturally by separating your content digestion from your content discovery. And it puts everything in one place. Web surfing and social media sites are black holes. It’s only necessary to actually go there sometimes. Don’t get sucked in. Use a reader.

With RSS, you dictate how you consume content in the order and organization you choose. Like your email inbox, you control the experience to your tastes, and this effectively enhances your consumption due to your greater level of comfort.

Four ways to use a reader

Once you’re set up, go to the channels where you want to engage and start subscribing to feeds of discussions, updates, links and questions. The exact usefulness will vary from channel to channel. Here are four ways:

1. Any blogs you follow will be RSS enabled. Organize them in your reader by category and/or the frequency that you read them.
2. On LinkedIn, you can grab feeds of your contacts’ updates and the questions posed in the Answers section.
3. You can subscribe to feeds of your Twitter searches and check in on them occasionally to monitor discussion.
4. Social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon let you pull feeds of searches, topics and categories. So you can keep an eye on all the most popular content in a given channel or segment of that channel.

RSS as a gateway to engagement and content creation

Using RSS in these and similar ways enables you to read and browse more content in a fraction of the time. You can keep your finger on the pulse of communities without overexerting yourself and your resources.

RSS offers a more complete look at how a channel behaves and what motivates discussion. Instead of waiting for that lightning strike moment when someone mentions your brand or product, you’re watching the big picture through RSS.

You can also quickly respond to pertinent content right from the link in your reader. This lets you manage your commenting and engagement on top of your intake.

Your engagement doesn’t stop at responding. Once you get a feel for the content that is out there, you can analyze it and figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. Experiment and let your digestion of incoming content become a catalyst for creating better outgoing content.

Takeaway

Use RSS to take in content from many different social media channels. Increase your efficiency at digesting content and use your awareness as a springboard to further your level of engagement. Create higher quality content than what you’re reading and you will raise the bar for the whole community. Great content will get you above the fray.