6 RSS Feed Tips for Targeting Train Commuters

Every morning on the train to work, I fire up Byline on my iPhone and read through my RSS feeds. It’s my version of the morning newspaper and the user journey needs to be as smooth as I want my commuter journey to be. I always come across the same few mistakes so I thought I’d create a checklist for how to configure the RSS feed experience for mobile users.

1. Firstly, do have an RSS feed. It takes very little effort to set up and is a great way to extend your communication channels. Sometimes a consumer doesn’t want to have a conversation; they just want to know what you think.
2. Do test your RSS feed. Some feeds have just a title and no content.
3. Do include images if they’re relevant. A good mobile RSS reader will allow the user to filter out images so there’s no need to make assumptions about a user’s bandwidth. I download my feeds while I’m having breakfast so if you have some good images, throw them in!
4. Do put the whole story in the feed. Too many sites supply a teaser that links through to the main website. If it’s a conscious decision I expect this is done to drive traffic to the website. The consumer insight that’s missing here is that a train commuter may not be online for much of their journey so they’re unable to read the whole story on your website; in which case you’ve not only lost an interested viewer but you’ve irritated a potential customer.
5. Do ensure that the link from the feed goes directly to the article. All too often, the link leads to a ‘mobile home page’ or an invitation to download the site’s iPhone app. Seriously, something like that will just get you deleted from my reader (if only Byline allowed this). And I’m hardly going to download an app when I barely have enough bandwidth to download a page of text.
6. Do offer a full experience to iPhone users if you insist on sending them to your website. I don’t want a bespoke ‘mobile experience’ if you don’t have time to do it properly. Time after time I’m presented with a cut-down version of site content, often not containing the very thing I was interested in seeing.