RSS - Don’t Be Left Behind
The way people use the Internet changes faster than yesterday’s socks.  If you are exploring new ways to make money from your music then you need to understand how humans are interacting with the web.  RSS is a relatively new way to use the web and the use of RSS is exploding.

RSS - Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary
From a consumer or fan perspective, RSS is a service and a tool for selectively managing information feeds from any number of websites and blogs.

From a content creator or artist perspective, RSS is a service that enables you to publish a stream or feed of information.  This feed is formed from the sequential updates you make to your website or blog.

According to Razorfish, 56% of Internet users are using RSS, and the trend is growing rapidly.  I predict that within three years, almost everyone using the Internet will be using RSS.  You can see the RSS icon (displayed left) all over the web.  Clicking Unsprung’s RSS icon takes you to our subscription page where you can subscribe to any one of our feeds.

After you get your head around what RSS is, consider how RSS will profoundly change the way your fans will interact with the digital version of you, and what your online strategy should be going forward.

Sending & Visiting - That’s so 2005…
Right now, you probably SEND out notifications to your fans using email, text messages or bulletins, and occasionally fans VISIT your website or your MySpace page.  

Perhaps some of your email is getting lost in the junk mail folder, or maybe your fans aren’t visiting your profile as frequently as they use to?  

In any case, if your online efforts seem to be flagging, then maybe it’s time to acknowledge that alternative and competing entertainment choices, as well as information overload, are fencing you away from the mindshare you had access to eighteen months ago.

You can probably see this in your own life, people are becoming so overwhelmed with choice and so inundated with messages that in a short time - SENDING messages and waiting for site VISITORS - are strategies that are going to cease to be effective.

People are running out of time.

Tuning & Pulling - The Future of Information Gathering…
One of the best ways to compete with choice and to cut through noise is to leverage the power of RSS.  By offering RSS, your fans can OPT INTO or TUNE INTO your stream of content and selectively PULL the information that informs and entertains them.

RSS is growing rapidly because it gives people the ability stay tuned into HUNDREDS of websites and blogs on a daily basis – no surfing required.  It also cuts out the need to receive annoying emails, as you are always tuned into the latest announcements and opportunities.

In addition, RSS feed-readers should become one of the most widely used applications on handheld devices; it’s one of the few tools that require minimal or no typing at all; furthermore, feed reading is a productive way to kill time.

Does It Really Matter?
Learning about and offering RSS matters if you want to acquire more fans than you have now.

 
Think about it this way: (diagram above) your current fans are in the small circle; your potential fans are within the larger encompassing circle.  Your current fans may read your emails and visit your website, but your potential fans will not process your emails or visit your website until they are hooked, and even then you’re expecting too much commitment from a new fan.  Here are some reasons why RSS is the best option for new fans:

• RSS is ten times more efficient than managing email subscriptions or web browsing.
• Potential fans can rapidly scan your feeds until they see or hear something that hooks them.
• Your feeds can transport images, music, video, text and links.

RSS and Your Income
I’m going to dig into this later, but measuring success in the future will be as much about counting subscribers, as it is about counting sales, downloads and profile visits.  Artists with large quantities of subscribers will find it easier to launch songs, to generate ad revenue, and to move fans to shows.  Subscribers will also be valuable to labels; if a label can motivate artists to work together on cross-promotion and recommendations, everyone - including the fan - benefits.

RSS For Artists - Getting Started
Every blogging platform offers RSS capabilities.  You can create a blog using Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, SquareSpace, (powers this blog) or upon many other platforms.

Best Practices
Get into the groove of posting something weekly.  Stop being so informative and start being entertaining.  Give your fans reasons to share your feed with others.  Learn how to serialize your content and how to be episodic.  When you are starting out, publish your entire post.  Some people only partially publish, or publish excerpts; this is a mistake.  Publishing your entire post, including songs and video, is the only way to communicate with people that are inundated with information and overloaded with entertainment options.

My next post will cover - Being Episodic.