How To Make An Online
Marketing Dashboard
The art of knowing everything about anything

First: Terms
• RSS (really simple syndication): This is the
language used to transfer information.
Otherwise known as XML
• Atom: A pair of related standards. – basically
the same as RSS
• RSS Reader: A program that reads the XML
language

Where to Find RSS
Use a Firefox/Safari/Internet Explorer Browser
Click here to get RSS URL
If you cannot find it there, look for symbol in the
footer of the page. The will be lit up if a feed is
detected
(chrome, sorry no RSS detection right now)

What A RSS Looks Like
Copy this URL
Firefox

What A RSS Looks Like
Copy this URL
The URL is the actual code that an RSS reader needs
to pull in information, so when you find content you
would like to come to you, copy the URL

Places to find good RSS Feeds
News: Trade Magazines: Twitter Search, Linkedin:
Google News Business Week Twitter Search topics
Yahoo News Inc. Magazine Vanity Search
Technorati News Industry Magazines Industry Search
Google Blog Search Topical Blogs Product Search
(next slide a how to on Yahoo Finance Geography Search
searching by keywords)
Bloomberg Linkedin RSS
Local newspapers Answers by topic
Video Blogs Connection activity
Podcasts

How to Advanced Search
Google News Example, but they are all the same
Pretty self explanatory, but here are a few tips:
1. Be targeted, but not too niche. Being too niche will not yield enough results
2. “without the words” is important
3. Experiment with the results until you get the desired outcome

How to Advanced Search
Click here and copy the RSS URL

Typical RSS Places in Trade Publications
Here

Advanced Search
on Twitter
Features to Notice

Linkedin RSS Feeds
Personal Feed Question Feeds

Building Your Dashboard
Box Style Dashboards File Style Dashboards
• Netvibes • Newsgator
• Pageflakes • Google Reader
• Protopage • Bloglines
• MyYahoo • Feedbucket
• iGoogle
• Excitemix
• MyMSN
• MyAOL
Personally, I prefer using an AJAX Based Box Dashboard, but whatever you are comfortable with; use

Building Your Dashboard
Box Style (in Netvibes)
Cut and paste your RSS feeds here, then click “add”

Building Your Dashboard
Box Style (in Netvibes)
Pick your style and arrange the content how you see fit

Building Your Dashboard
File Style (in Google Reader)
Cut and paste your RSS feeds here, then click “add”