If you syndicate your rss feed on multiple websites it can create duplicate content issues. This is because the same headline and snippet will be repeated on all of those sites. Search engines value uniqueness and therefore these links will be somewhat devalued.
I am not saying the rss link syndication links will be worthless. They will have benefit but not as much if they were embedded with unique content and had varied (but still focused) anchor text.
If your rss feed is in demand and it will not create near identical copies of your content then go for it. Be careful to limit the amount of your snippet. Based on my experience this type of project does not generally deliver great results, since the sites willing to syndicate your rss feed are not normally good quality sites.
FYI RSS feeds were popular as a link building scheme over 3 years ago. Be aware that the search engines know and understand this strategy. Needless to say it does not perform as well as it used to.
As for distributing free articles embedded with links to your site - This can be very helpful in developing links. It is ideal to distribute unique articles to individual sites. If you can't write unique articles then at least try to change the article title and opening paragrah and slightly change the anchor text. This gives a more organic look to these links.
I find it best to contact high quality related sites and proactively offer the content. Most people simply submit to the article directory sites which are mostly used by poor quality sites looking for free content. That is not your ideal end user.
Try to give away your articles instead of exchanging them. This will increase the amount of one way links pointing to your site. If you do exchange articles just make sure all content is unique and you will get some good link juice from the exchange. Copyscape is an easy way to test the uniqueness of content.
