This article describes RSS feed URLs in your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) community and using Marketo to automatically send messages when content is updated.
📝 NOTE: This is possible only if your community and the content you want to link to are public.
Create your RSS feed
Every Category in Vanilla has an RSS feed which you "create" by appending /feed.rss to the URL.
📝 NOTE: For the examples below, we use open-source URLs. When doing this in your community, be sure to use your own community URLs.
Example 1
If you have a Category called Developers, structure the RSS feed URL as:
- https://open.vanillaforums.com/categories/developers/feed.rss
Example 2
If you want to curate only content from the Best Of page, you can choose the reaction (e.g., promote) you want. In this case, structure the RSS feed URL as:
- https://open.vanillaforums.com/bestof/promote/feed.rss
Example 3
If you want the most recent discussions, structure the RSS feed URL as:
- https://open.vanillaforums.com/discussions/feed.rss
Place the RSS feed URL
The RSS feed URL can now be placed on web pages and in email messages so that it automatically presents information from the host page in your community to which it is linked.
📝 NOTE: Whenever the content changes on the host page in your community, the RSS feed will be automatically updated.
The next section describes how Marketo can be configured to automatically notify users when an RSS feed is updated.
Use Marketo to send "update" messages
Marketo can be set up to automatically send an email message to a pre-defined list of users when new content is added to the feed's host page in your community.
If 50 people have to know about new discussions in a category (such as Upcoming Events), you set up automatic email messages in Marketo to notify those 50 people. As a bonus, the messages can be built on a template that carries your brand.
Check out the Marketo plugins for this functionality:
Additional reading
The basic concepts and set-up steps for the above-mentioned automatic email messages are pretty similar in various marketing-automation solutions (Marketo, HubSpot, and MailChimp).