The Value of an RSS Reader: It's Not About You

Marketing missions is about relationships; it's not about you. Sure, you want to get your message out, but you first and continually need to connect with people who want to hear your message. You've already done this offline - you've been to churches, sent newsletters, made friends.

You can maintain those relationships by showing that you care about the people who support you. Keeping up with your closest supporters' blogs, tweets, and Facebook updates can help you stay connected. Imagine congratulating a supporter on the birth of a baby, and you'll see the difference staying connected can make.

Keeping up with several blogs and other networks can be a chore, however, and that's where a RSS reader proves it's value. Using a RSS reader, you can subscribe to blogs, Twitter feeds, and other frequently updated websites so you can access them all in one place. It's not just another thing to check; it's THE way to check (almost) everything at once.

Are you convinced RSS readers are worth a try? I personally prefer Web-based RSS readers, which allow me to access my RSS feeds from any Internet-connected computer. I also like that Web-based readers keep my feeds synched, so posts I read while at home don't show up as new when I view the list at work. However, you may prefer a desktop-based reader if you would like to read feeds when you aren't connected to the Internet.

Here is a list of some of my favorite RSS readers. Try one out, and tell me what you think!

• iGoogle with Google Reader - iGoogle is really a personal Web portal, but I have a tab in iGoogle for the RSS feeds of blogs to which I subscribed using Google Reader. I've divided my blogs into five folders in Google Reader, and I have five Google Reader blocks on my iGoogle page. With just a glance, I can tell if anyone has published new content to the ministry marketing blogs, IPHC missionary blogs, Christian blogs, other missionary blogs, or friends and family blogs to which I'm subscribed. (Thanks to Megan Miles for tipping me off to this great tool.)
  
• Bloglines - Before I switched to Google, I used Bloglines. Again, I sorted my blogs into a few categories. One thing I loved about Bloglines was how easy it was to browse the new posts from all the blogs stored in a category. For instance, if I clicked the "IPHC missionary blogs" category, Bloglines displayed a list of all the titles of new posts on any of the blogs in that category. Being able to browse just the titles made it a breeze to quickly identify what I needed to read. With a single click, I could expand the blog post and read it on the same page.
  
• Outlook 2007 - Outlook 2007's reader deserves mention since so many people already use Outlook. I love having access to my calendar, contacts, and email all within one application, and Outlook's RSS reader pulls updates from websites into the same application.