How to Use Google Reader to Quickly Find and Share Great Content
Sharing content from 3rd party sources can be a powerful way to build credibility, increase your reach and spark conversations on social media. Your clients and prospects are looking for you to be a resource for their business. By passing along up-to-date information on local and industry news that effects their business or valuable and helpful advice that solves their problems, you become the filter, the trusted expert in your industry that they will turn to when they are in need of your product or service.
Over the last few months, I have had numerous conversations with people about why they should be sharing 3rd party content on social media that is relevant and valuable to their audience. But the “Why” is not really the problem, most people get it pretty quickly. The conversations then usually shifts to “How”.
How do I find good, relevant content?
How do I filter through it quickly?
How do I easily share it to my social media profiles?
Most blogs and news sites offer RSS feeds. RSS feeds are a way to subscribe to a blog so that you can see any new content that is added to that blog. Google Reader is simply a tool you can use to view all of the RSS feeds you subscribe to in one place.
To illustrate, let’s say you are a veterinarian. By searching Google for “pet tips”, you discover there are 50 blogs that offer great tips for pet owners on a daily basis. You could bookmark all 50 sites, then visit each one individually every day to see if there is a new post worth sharing with your clients (pet owners), but that would probably take hours. With Google Reader, you visit the site and click the RSS button or link. It then takes you to a page that asks how you want to subscribe. You choose “Google Reader” and click “Subscribe Now” and the blog is instantly added as one of your subscriptions. Do this for the other 49 sites, and now instead of visiting each site every day, you just go to Google Reader and can see new posts from all 50 sites in one place.
I subscribe to over 180 blogs. I can filter through them and find content to share in less than 10 minutes a day. I am constantly adding feeds when I find a new blogs that I like.
Now, let’s talk about HOW to get set up...
- Sign up for a Gmail account if you don’t already have one. Make sure you are signed in to your Gmail account on your browser.
- Find a site with an RSS feed (ours is above the first post on the page if you want to try it) and click the link.
- Choose “Google Reader” and click “Subscribe Now”. You should now see the blog in your list of subscriptions. Rinse and repeat.
- Read through the posts and find the ones you want to share. Click on the post title to visit and share from the site directly. Most blogs will have sharing buttons or you can use a tool like Hootsuite to share to several social media profiles at once.
- When your done reading the new posts, you can click “Mark as Read” and only the new stuff will show up next time you go to Reader.
I realize this might be a bit simplified, so feel free to comment if you need additional help.
I would also suggest creating folders for different types of content. You can create folders by clicking the little down arrow next to the feed name in the right sidebar and then click “New Folder” or choose an existing folder. I have folders for marketing news, social media and technology as well as my personal interests.
It will require some tweaking to get Reader set up the way that works best for you, but once it’s done you will be able to find, filter and share 3rd party content that is relevant, valuable and helpful to your audience in about 10 minutes a day. Your will see your Social Media reach start to grow and maybe even spark a few conversations.
Finally, don’t forget to include Inbound Marketing best practices and mix in sharing some of your own blog posts and offers every day. Being a trusted resource is important, but attracting vistors to your own site, generating leads and getting new customers is why you are marketing your business in the first place.
How do you find great content to share? Any other Google Reader tips or tricks? Do you use other RSS feed readers?
