Did you know there are lots of ways RSS can be used for your business? Here are some example uses that you may not know about. Quick note: Some can be easily abused so use them wisely, if you use it.
Twitter: Automatically create a new tweet when you have new posts. There are many ways to do this, a popular and free tool to use is Twitterfeed.
Facebook - like twitter, Facebook can also be updated automatically when you post. One recommended application to use is "My Blogs", as using Facebook app's can sometimes be unreliable.
Widgets: design a special widget related to your blog. The widget could then be displayed on their own blogs or even on their desktop. This can easily be done with Spring Widgets or Google Gadgets.
File delivery: If you are already publishing a podcast, then it should be easy to start offering PDF documents or video downloads via RSS.
Affiliates RSS feeds: Allow your affiliates to display your content wherever they wish. Give them the incentive by branding any links with their affiliate ID. This will credit them with any purchases made from your sites.
Find deals for your business: Who doesn't like to save money? Save on your next business purchase. There are lots of ways you can track sales and deals from stores like Amazon. For Internet Marketing related purchases, you can save a feed like the one from Deal.com to your RSS reader.
Package tracking: have your RSS feed update to alert you to the status of your deliveries. Use a solution like SimpleTracking.com.
Track latest questions on Yahoo Answers: Answering questions on Yahoo Answers can be very effective to promote your business. Subscribe to the RSS feed of the category you're interested in so you'll be notified when a new question you can answer comes in.
Blog tracking - There are times when e-mail servers as a delays or are under maintenance. An alternative to e-mail is using RSS. Most blogging accounts Offer the option of an RSS feed. For example, if you use WordPress blog, the feed will usually be located at http://yourblog.com/comments/feed/ or http://yourblog.com/?feed=comments-rss2.
Competitor watch: Find out what competitors or other marketers are doing on social networks, blogs, video and more using FriendFeed.
Industry watch - there is an option with the Yahoo or MSN search engine's, where you can type a phrase that suits your interests, and if you are using IE 7 or Firefox, an RSS feed icon will appear. If you click this icon you will subscribe to the keyword feed.
Advertisements: I've never tried RSS advertising, but I have displayed the odd advertisement in an RSS feed. Surprisingly this CTR for the sites I used out performed click throughs' from the website itself. Pheedo, FeedBurner and Text-Link-Ads make RSS advertising possible.
Keep clients updated - notify your customers off your current service status. Businesses to offer usable services like online shopping, web hosting or payment gateways should use this. Using RSS, your clients can be updated by the second.
