I think that there is a lot of confusion in the business world about where RSS fits into the social media mix. After all, there are plenty of folks touting the benefits of RSS along with the benefits of technologies like Blogging, Podcasting, Tagging and Wikis.

The fact is that all of these technologies either generate or syndicate RSS across the internet. And we all know that choices can be very confusing for first time adopters of a new technology. If you’re new to social media then you’re probably asking, “Where do I start?”.

Let me muddy the waters a little more and tell you that there is no simple answer. Start off by thinking of RSS as the grease for all of the other social media technologies.

Blogs are typically used to convey an ongoing stream of messages on a website and just about all blogs generate an RSS feed as well. So most businesses who want to have their info syndicated via RSS can do it very easily by using blog software. The same thing goes for podcasts.

Podcasts are rich media delivered via RSS with media enclosures. Once again, Blog software is probably the best generator for Podcast RSS feeds.

If you’re merely interested in getting the word out via an RSS feed and don’t want a new blog or podcast website then you certainly don’t have to have one. You can use Blog software to generate your RSS feeds and then place a link to that RSS feed on your existing website. This will get you involved in RSS syndication without having to maintain an extra website.

Another option is to utilize a tool that strictly generates RSS. Desktop based tools like RSS Editor and Tristana Writer can help you to generate and publish RSS feeds to the web. If you’re looking for a web based RSS generator then try the IceRocket Free RSS Builder. A new web based service called PodBasket will assist you with creating a simple, podcast compliant RSS feed.

So you don’t necessarily have to maintain a Blog or Podcast website to utilize RSS. You can use blogging software to simply generate your RSS feeds. Or you can use a tool specially designed to generate RSS. That said, there are other benefits to maintaining a Blog or Podcast website along with your RSS feeds. But I’ll get into those details in a later post.

[tags]Social Media, RSS, Blogging, Podcasting[/tags]