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RSS is a powerful tool for newsletters.
And with beehiiv’s new RSS feature, you have the ability to plug a feed into your newsletter template that will automatically pull the latest articles into the issue. This saves tons of time (especially for daily newsletters) by eliminating the need to manually choose, copy, and paste articles.
But there’s a catch: The feed items, including item descriptions, in RSS feeds are uneditable once they land in your draft and are often limited to a single source.
As a newsletter operator, I wanted a curated feed of articles from diverse sources and with custom article descriptions – something standard RSS tools found online couldn’t deliver.
Below, I’ll discuss a simple workaround we came up with to solve this, allowing us to create and update our own RSS feed using Feedly and Zapier, before plugging it into beehiiv.
In the end, you’ll know how to pull stories from multiple sources, add your own content, and further automate the news aggregation process.
What You’ll Need
A Feedly Pro account (required to connect to Zapier, but also helpful as it allows you to better fine-tine your news aggregation)
A Zapier account
A beehiiv account
Step 1: Find Your Niche
Choose a topic for your newsletter. Even if news articles don’t fill your entire issue, RSS blocks can enhance your newsletter. Place them in dedicated sections – like “Industry Updates” or “What’s New” – below your core content.
Step 2: Set Up a News Aggregator
Use a news aggregation tool like Feedly to gather articles from various sources. Create a folder in Feedly for your niche and add news sources, authors, columns, or blogs you like to pull from.
Pro Tip: With Feedly Pro, you can pull Google News into your feed using keywords. So if my niche was the Buffalo Bills, for example, I would aggregate news that include the keywords “Buffalo” and “Bills” or “Josh Allen” in the same feed. I’d then add negative keyword settings to filter out any unrelated stories. In this example, I’d probably choose something like “-governor” or “-legislation” to prevent my feed from getting clogged with local bills being passed in the city of Buffalo.
Step 3: Add a Board in Feedly
Create a board in Feedly (similar to a folder) to organize articles you want in your newsletter. This board will trigger your custom RSS feed in Zapier.
Step 4: Create a 2-Step Zap in Zapier
Now, for the slightly more technical part. Set up a Zap to build your RSS feed:
Trigger: “New Article in Board” (from Feedly)
Action: “Create Item in Feed” (RSS by Zapier)
Configure the feed:
Feed URL: This is generated by Zapier automatically. You’ll just need to make up your own unique string
Item Title: Article title
Source URL: Article URL
Content: Custom description (more on this below)
pubDate: Use “now” to timestamp when you add the article to the board
Important Note: Before adding an article to the board, open the article in Feedly, add a custom note (your curated description), then save it. Once you add a new article in a board, Zapier should grab this note as the Content field, if you set up the zap correctly.
Why edit the article description? When leveraging RSS to aggregate news, you sometimes come across articles with funky or incomplete feed items. Not all RSS feeds look the exact same either.
Missing item descriptions or different word counts can make the flow of your RSS newsletter a little off. Adding a note, however, gives your readers some consistency.
Copy and paste content in the note yourself, add your opinion, or type whatever you want that may engage your audience.
Step 5: Plug Your Feed Into beehiiv
Once your Zap is live, copy your Feed URL (found in Step 4) and add this to your beehiiv post template’s RSS block. Limit the article count to, say, three stories per issue – each with a link and your custom description – and format the block as you’d like. As a result, the beehiiv builder will display the three most recent RSS feed items in your newsletter.
Step 6: Curate & Automate
Now, instead of manually building each newsletter:
Browse your Feedly folder (your personal, filtered, and powerful aggregator) for relevant articles you want to share with subscribers
Add a custom note (article description) to each article
Simply add your article in Feedly to the board associated with your Zap
Repeat for three articles (or however many you want)
beehiiv handles the rest, delivering a curated news block in every issue
Why It Works
This setup saved me hours compared to copying and pasting articles daily. I used it on Mailchimp until they discontinued RSS support, but now it’s available on beehiiv.
You’re already aggregating and curating news – so why not do it all in one place?
If you need any help at all feel free to reach out.