Who wants to be more in touch with energy management trends?
I see you raising your hand, but I know your dilemma: so many trends, so little time!
All you alpha energy managers, like me as DEXMA’s marketing manager, are probably way too busy to catch up with the latest energy news.
Today we are going to solve that problem with a tool I use every day to stay on top of all things energy management: Feedly.
Read on for tips to work with Feedly like a PRO.
True Story: Why You need a System to Stay Updated About Energy Trends
It’s been a year since I joined DEXMA as marketing manager. My first couple of weeks here were a rollercoaster, organizing a few events and getting the team ready for our 2016 challenges.
After that, not only did I have to start learning about our product, but also dive into the mind-boggling energy industry.
Confession: I’m not an engineer or an energy expert like you guys reading this. But I can guarantee that You Today and Pre-Feedly María have many things in common.
A couple of weeks later I found myself bookmarking 10 articles about the energy industry worth reading and downloading a couple of case studies or white papers. All went to my “reading later” folder, and it was growing bigger every single day.
That drove me nuts. And even worse: I was not learning about the everyday life of the energy manager.
And this was CRUCIAL for my role, as this blog is supposed to be full of practical articles for the energy expert, amusing webinars for the community and interesting white papers for you.
Ok, María, but that’s you, a marketer. How am I similar to you?
Well, let me know if you have ever…
- … felt that you need to train yourself to get better at your work?
Earlier this year we surveyed energy experts and 32% admitted that training was the main challenge for them this year. Blog articles and downloads are a GREAT way to learn about new technologies and best practices to save energy. But constantly checking blogs and media pages is time consuming and becomes messy fast. - … “saved” that interesting link for later or scanned it quickly without ever getting back to it?
- … heard the latest industry news from your client, or even worse, read it on your competitor’s page?
Ugh, that’s the worst! In our industry, more competitive than ever, you need to position yourself strongly as an expert in the field.
Real Solution: Use Feedly to Get Updated without Losing Time
So, I realised that I needed to change the way I was trying to learn, discover energy management trends and stay updated on energy news.
I started using Feedly, and you should too if you want to follow energy trends in a convenient, systematic and professional way.
What is Feedly? It’s an RSS feed aggregator. Ok, what’s that again? Easy-peasy. An RSS feed is a technology that almost every website uses to send information when there’s something new to feed readers. Feedly is like the mother of all RSS feed readers.
It’s completely free and you can use it to:
- Add all your interesting pages
- Get updates when they publish news, articles or resources
- Organise your interests by topic
Basically, I love Feedly because YOU HAVE ALL THE NEWS IN ONE SINGLE TOOL. You will avoid losing time opening pages, remembering articles and digging until you find something interesting.
Step-by-Step: Configuring Feedly to Become a Top Energy Manager
- Go to feedly.com and create an account. You can use your social media or google profiles to do it in a snap.
- Add your feeds!
- Take an url you want to follow, for example: http://www.dexma.com/blog/
- Paste it in the search box on the top right in your screen:
- Hit enter
- Now select the feed you want to add by clicking on the green “+” button
- Add the feed to the right topic. Think about topics like the categories or folders that will keep your feedly clean.
In order not to lose two hours setting up your account, during your first week with Feedly I recommend spending 10 minutes everyday adding your feeds.
PRO tip: add the feeds that Feedly suggests to expand your initial use of the tool and spend less time adding relevant content to your feeds.
What’s next? Making sure you don’t end up setting up the tool and never going back to it. How to avoid this? Here’s what I do to stay tuned with the energy business:
- After checking your email in the morning, go to your Feedly account
- Spend 10 minutes reading top energy news. Use your smartphone timer to spend only 10 minutes!
If you find anything interesting, share it! Sharing means caring and someone in your team will probably thank you if you share relevant content with them. And your customers too!
Bonus Track: Vitamins with Email Subscriptions
Here’s my last confession of the day: some weeks I don’t have even have time to go and check Feedly. And it will happen to you too.
Think of those weeks when you’re traveling half of the time, when you have some personal stuff to manage, or have just returned from holidays…
Great, Maria, and you waited until the end of this super long post to tell us that everything you mentioned above is not even worth it?
Not at all! Here’s where you should apply email subscriptions to win time:
So, imagine that you have your shiny Feedly organised and running. In a couple of weeks you will discover that your feeds are interesting, but there are one or two energy news sources that you find essential.
For the ones I have like that, I go to these blogs or pages and I subscribe to their blogs or news via email.
That way I’m sure I will get 1-2 emails per week from them with the things I like to read the most.
For example, if you love the DEXMA blog, you can use the following simple form to subscribe:
And as you see, you have the option to get articles when we publish them (we normally publish once or twice per week) or a weekly summary.
There you have it! Remember to share your best energy efficiency feeds with us @Dexma 🙂
Happy Feedlying!
