Having trouble keeping up with everything that’s being said about your brand? Can’t follow the constant Tweets, blog entries, YouTube videos, and Pownce updates? Tired of sorting through your fifty different RSS feeds just to find something you’re interested in?
Then get yourself over to Yahoo! Pipes ASAP. Yup, I said it. Yahoo! did something right.
Developed early last year, Pipes allows its users to create mashups of their favorite RSS feeds and filter out any unnecessary content. What they’re left with is a simple RSS feed, pulling in the search terms from around the web that are tailored to meet their personal interests.
For us social media marketers, a particular Pipe has been developed to help us sort through the content that pours in to our favorite community sites. Social Media Firehouse, developed by Kingsley Joseph, sends alerts every time your brand is mentioned on sites like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Digg. Just plug your company or brand name into the search box, filter out your own website, and you’re ready to roll.
Your results are shown in the usual list format, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, images and mapping results can be displayed as well. You can then grab a button that you’re free to pop into your Google Reader (or most other feed readers).
With so much available user-generated content flowing into the web on a second-by-second basis, we know that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. But this particular Yahoo! Pipes delivers a simple solution to a time-consuming problem.
Now put that in your Pipe and smoke it.
