Listen to custom sources in Microsoft Social Engagement

With the latest update to Microsoft Social Engagement you can extend the coverage of your data sources by adding custom sources.

Custom sources offer a way to get additional data from your favorite public RSS and Atom feeds. You can create search topic rules and filters to gain further insight into all your sources

Here is a the overview page for the search topic I created, in which I listen in on a number of souces including a custom source (Ein News filtered for the country Iceland) – note the custom source at the bottom of the Sources widget (1)

 
If I click the custom source at the bottom of the Sources widget I filter the results to the two post from the customs source matching my keyword filters for the search topic (eg Keflavik airport)

 
Obviously I can filter to see the actual posts too

 
To set up a custom source you need the RSS feed from the site. Some sites surfaces their RSS feeds right there for you to subscribe to (you might have to registrer to get it).

With the RSS feed URL you

1. Go to Search Setup > Custom Sources
2. In the Custom Sources pane, click Add a custom source.
3. Enter the name of the group and initials to uniquely identify your sources.
   Note It's important to create distinct initials so you can differentiate your custom sources when analyzing your data. The initials will appear anywhere your custom sources are displayed.
4. Enter your RSS or Atom feed, and then click the Add button to validate and add a source
5. Click Save when done

 
With the custom source set up you can set up a search topic in with you include your new custom source

So with this great new addition to Microsoft Social Engagement you can extend the coverage of your data sources.

A few tips

• To evaluate if a page has RSS try http://ctrlq.org/rss/
• If there is no RSS feed, you might be able to generate one from an online news page using a RSS Builder eg.:
  • http://page2rss.com/
  • http://www.rssmix.com/
    Simple UI – Up to 100 feeds into 1 mixed feed
  • http://feed.informer.com/
    Need to sign up, but it's free of charge – Relatively simple UI, allowing as well to prefilter feeds in the mixed feed – Up to 50 entries per feed