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What an RSS feed is, what it is for and how to find it
What’s an RSS feed?
Is a file generated by some websites or blogs with the information that they have published. Each of the elements that have been published and appear in the RSS feed are called items.
Each of these items normally contain a title, description and link to the original website.
It can also include information such as: publication date or author’s name.
What’s an RSS feed for?
These files make the management and publication of information and news from web pages easier.
This file updates each time a new article is posted on a blog. With an RSS feed, you will have the most recent information and know when your blog is updated.
How do you find?
An RSS feed can be generated by blogs, websites and YouTube channels. These are the steps to follow in order to find an RSS feed:
How to find an RSS feed URL of a website or blog
In order to get a feed’s URL of your web page, normally it’s enough to add the words feed and RSS to the end of the link. For example:
If your blog or webpage is made on WordPress, only the last 10 posts will show in the RSS file by default. However, you can change the number of items on: Settings > Reading.
How to find the RSS feed’s URL for a YouTube channel
To find the RSS file of a YouTube channel, first access to the channel.
Then, right-click with the mouse and select view page’s source code.
Next, press Ctrl + F to open the search bar on the top-right side of the window and write Channelid.
The first result shown for channel id is a combination of numbers and letters as displayed in the image above. Copy and paste these characters at the end of this link:
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=
The result of a YouTube channel’s RSS feed is:
https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCZiXdeWvoCRo8rBbQ6VHBzw
What an RSS feed is used for:
These files have different applications:
✅ To be updated with the latest releases
With RSS readers you can be updated with the latest posts in a blog without having to open the blog itself.
✅ Automatization
There are some automatization tools that create a series of actions from your digital content, such as, autolists.
✅ Metricool’s autolists
With Metricool’s autolists, you can plan your content on social media faster and get more time to generate other content.
Metricool’s autolist feature lets you add content in three different ways:
- Manually
- Adding a CSV file
- Adding an RSS feed
To add an RSS feed to an autolists, first, click the RSS feed option and fill in the fields requested:
- Paste the feed’s URL and click on search so Metricool can find the RSS feed.
- Complete the prefix and suffix fields:
- Prefix: text that will go at the beginning of all the publications that your feed contains.
- Suffix: Text placed at the end of each publication.
- Include previous publications: if you click this option, the last content in the RSS will be included in the autolist along with future content. If you don’t check this option, only new publications will be included, that is, the autolist will start when there is a new publication.
- Add deactivated publications: This means that all publications will be included as deactivated to the autolist. In other words, they won’t be published on social media unless they are manually activated.
- Add to the beginning of the autolist: if you check this option, the new RSS publications will be added to the beginning of the autolist. If you do not tick this option, they will be added at the end of it by default.
I hope this post helps you to understand what an RSS feed is and how to use it for your social media strategy!
Do you still have some questions? Drop us a line on the comment section and we will answer you 😉