Don't be the Guy in the Banana Suit

Two big stories coming in on my RSS feed.

One is about, well, RSS feeds, and the other is about building community around a product.

First, to RSS.
Steve Rubel points us to Emerson's new RSS starter kit, which explains what a feed is and how to use one to improve your web surfing. He also points to new information on advertising in the weblog and RSS space. More money is going towards online marketing, and understanding the difference between the two is just the beginning.

I finally broke down a couple of weeks ago and started using RSS regularly. It has incresed by a hundredfold my functional ability to surf the web and pull good stories down. To some people, this might seem daunting, but all I've done is add all of my regular reads, and quite a few new ones into one place.

In essence, I don't have to type in websites to find out what is going on - it's delivered to NetNewsWire, which makes reading blogposts and newspaper articles as easy as reading Outlook. If you can surf 300 messages when you get back from a long weekend, you can read 300 posts in your newsreader, sorting, deleting, and controlling your information flow.

The second post is on the Intuit community, and the Church of the Customer Blog delivers:

"Go to Intuit's community site for QuickBooks customers and you'll find a state-of-the-art arena filled with:

* Customer forums grouped by industry, product add-ons and level of software
* A slew of podcasts about tax tips and payroll usage
* Screencasts on how to use the software
* A database of customer-requested features and the company's response to the requests
* A roster of product and small-business blogs
* A library of product tips and ideas
* RSS feeds for most of the above"

What Intuit is doing is providing services that complement their expertise. Customers who buy their software have other needs - if Intuit provides for all their needs, they are more likely to buy their software. This is the point of community in business marketing - solving multiple problems around a core product.

So what we have is companies starting to catch on. Emerson teaches RSS to showcase their expertise, and Intuit builds a community around their product. Now compare that to companies who still think blogs are written only by unemployed consultants in their pajamas.

The Summary:

1) The ability to read large amounts of information is a competitive advantage every executive should have. Utilizing a web-savvy member of your staff or a blogging consultant, you can set up your new RSS information filter and be better informed, more quickly than ever before.

2) Reading is part of the solution. Learning to function in an online community, understanding the rules and providing a place for your customers to gather information, is the new marketing.

Think of it this way. OldSchool Advertising is the guy on the streetcorner in a banana suit begging you to come inside and try the latest specials. Building an online community is the equivalent of having your best friend drive you to the restaurant and ordering with you.