Finding RSS feeds for blogs you want to share – Vista Social

Plan

✓ Professional ✓ Advanced ✓ Scale ✓ Enterprise

If you want to use a specific blog as a source for Smart Publisher or bulk schedule content from that blog, you can connect its RSS feed to Vista Social.

Vista Social can usually detect the RSS feed automatically from the blog's meta tags. If the feed isn't detected automatically, you can find it manually using the methods below.

Available on: Professional, Advanced, Scale, and Enterprise plans.

Note

After you connect an RSS feed to Smart Publisher, we’ll pull in posts from the past 72 hours and then keep monitoring the feed for any new posts going forward.

Vista Social can usually find the RSS feed from the blog site's meta tags automatically - no heavy lifting from your end!

Sometimes you may run into a site where that's not so automatic, usually because the site's meta tags don't provide such easy instructions to find the RSS feed ─ don't worry, there are other ways to find it!

WordPress blogs

To find a WordPress blog's RSS feed, just add /feed to the end of the URL. For example: https://coffeeaffection.com/feed

Since almost 15% of the websites in the world are powered by WordPress, you'll usually get this right away!

Shopify blogs

To find a Shopify blog's RSS feed, you'll want to add .atom to the end of the URL. For example, using this blog's URL, https://ravecoffee.co.uk/blogs/news, we'd use https://ravecoffee.co.uk/blogs/news.atom instead

Medium blogs

To find a Medium blog's RSS feed, you'll want to add /feed/ to the end of the URL. For example, https://ravecoffee.co.uk/blogs/news/feed/

Tumblr blogs

To find a Tumblr blog's RSS feed, you'll want to add /rss to the end of the URL. For example, https://ravecoffee.co.uk/blogs/news/rss

Blogger blogs

To find a Blogger blog's RSS feed, you'll want to add /feeds/posts/default to the end of the URL. For example, https://ravecoffee.co.uk/blogs/news/feeds/posts/default

Other blogs (using Page Source)

If the blog isn't built with any of the tools above, or you're just not sure, you can usually find the RSS feed easily with your browser's Page Source tool.

1. Right-click on the blog and select View Page Source.

2. Using the Find function (CTRL/CMD+F), look for "rss"

You can also look for "feed" or "atom" to locate it:

Key things to check

Make sure you're using the RSS feed URL, not just the URL of the blog.
Check that the feed belongs to the blog or content source you want to use.
If Vista Social doesn't detect the feed automatically, try finding it manually using the methods above.
Newly connected feeds only import articles published within the previous 72 hours.
After the feed is connected, new articles are monitored going forward.

Expected behavior

After you connect an RSS feed to Smart Publisher:

Articles published within the previous 72 hours can be imported.
Older historical articles aren't imported when the feed is first connected.
New articles published after the feed is connected are monitored automatically.
When creating automated posts, you can use information provided by the RSS feed.

What information can be pulled from an RSS feed?

For a Specific Blog (RSS) source in Smart Publisher, Vista Social can use these fields from the RSS feed:

Title - The headline or title of the article.
Link - The direct URL to the original article.
Description - The summary or excerpt provided by the RSS feed.

You can choose which of these fields to include when creating your automated posts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why can't Vista Social find my RSS feed automatically?
A: Vista Social usually detects RSS feeds from a website's meta tags. If the website doesn't expose the feed in a way that can be detected automatically, you'll need to find the RSS URL manually.

Q: Why isn't Smart Publisher importing older articles?
A: When a new RSS feed is connected, Smart Publisher only imports articles published within the previous 72 hours. Articles older than three days aren't imported as historical content.

Q: Will new articles be imported after I connect the RSS feed?
A: Yes. Once the feed is active, Smart Publisher monitors it for new articles going forward.

Q: What information can Smart Publisher use from my RSS feed?
A: Smart Publisher can use the article's Title, Link, and Description from the RSS feed.

Q: What should I do if a new article isn't being pulled from my RSS feed?
A: Make sure the article is published to the RSS feed and that the RSS URL is correct. If the issue continues, contact the Vista Social support team and provide the RSS URL.

Need further help?
If you have any questions or need additional help, feel free to contact our awesome support team. We are here to assist you! 💙