With being featured on several different media sites across multiple platforms, Zennie wanted a way to integrate dynamic content from the several sites he was featured on into a single application. He decided to work with Widgetbox to create a customized Blidget that included five tabs of different content—his SFgate.com and Zennie62.com blogs, Twitter updates, and his YouTube and CNN video blog features. In addition to the multiple content sources, the Blidget also featured a branded header and footer so followers could instantly recognize Zennie’s brand.

With his customized Blidget, users could easily scroll through the different tabs to see Zennie’s most recent posts, videos, and updates. Also because Widgtbox Blidgets can be installed to the web’s most popular sites—including Facebook, Blogger, MySpace, and iGoogle—it ensured that additional users could install the Blidget if they happened to view it on a friend or family member’s web page—promoting viral buzz and online growth.

Creating and listing a customized Blidget with Widgetbox helped Zennie to accomplish his marketing objectives, with Zennie’s Blidget being one of the most popular widgets on Widgetbox, with over 155,000 impressions a day. Says Zennie, "The Blidget for my video-blog brand Zennie62.com has been an incredible technology that binds all of my different online entities into one portable place. I recommend Widgetbox’s Blidget to anyone who is interested in promoting their brand and increasing their web presence!".

While Widgetbox Blidgets are free to create, Go Pro to get the most features—including multiple tabs of content, customized headers and footers, and no ads.

Get started making a Blidget »

This month our development team decided to continue with the whole “Make the Blidget Even More Awesome” theme, and released some very cool new tab style options to allow you to further customize the appearance of your Blidget.

New features include:

• Two new tab style options: Our new portfolio and bar tab styles allow you to add even more customization to the appearance of your Blidget’s tabs
• New shape, color, and text options: Decide on the shape, color, and text appearance of your tabs
• Interaction states: Just introduced interaction states allow you to change how your tabs appear when users click on or hover over them
• Tab positions: Customize the alignment of your tabs

To take advantage of these just-released features, Go Pro for free with a 7-day trial.

Get started making a Blidget »

Jillian Jones
Product Marketing

As part of Widgetbox’s new staff series—we’ll be bringing you occasional guest posts from members of the Widgetbox team.

Chances are you’re already well versed with social networking sites. You regularly update your Facebook profile, you have hundreds of professional connections on LinkedIn, and you could probably even narrate your entire weekend with a 140 character Tweet.

But while you may be well aware of the personal value of social media, do you know how to use it as a tool for successfully marketing your business or brand?

Here are my tips and tricks for how to get the most out of your business’s social media efforts:

There’s no such thing as a free lunch—even when it comes to social media.

While there are very few (if any) monetary costs involved with social media marketing, there are substantial costs of time. A fully integrated social media plan will require a considerable investment of your time across multiple sites and services. Perhaps more than any other marketing channel, with social media it’s extremely important that your pages are up to date and relevant. Social media is all about staying current and engaging, while being responsive—things that are hard to do if you’re not monitoring your social media campaigns at least once a day. To help ease the workload here are two tips I recommend:

1. Integrate dynamic content from several sites into single applications whenever possible.
   Widgets allow you to combine several social media sites into one customizable unit. For example Widgetbox’s Blidget™ allows you to include your blog, Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, and more into a single app. And, since several social media sources are in a single app, it ensures users will be able to easily follow you across multiple sites by installing your widget once.
2. Utilize services that allow you to post to multiple sites and services with a single post.
   For this purpose, I highly recommend Posterous.com. It’s a free service that allows you to post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn , and more by sending a single email.

Use other sites besides the Big Three—especially if you’re in a niche or specialized market.

A big myth in social media marketing is that your brand’s social media strategy should consist primarily of the Big Three—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This isn’t necessarily the most effective strategy, especially if you’re in a small, niche, or specialized market. Some additional sites I recommend utilizing are YouTube, Flickr, Bank of America’s Small Business Community, Digg, Ning, and Technorati.

If you are going to target one of the Big Three sites—make it personalized. For example, you can add customized content such as polls, countdowns, spotlight galleries, and more to your Facebook Fan Page using Widgetbox’s Facebook Fan Page apps.

Try a lot of different things to see what people respond to, especially if you have a varied audience.

Take Widgetbox for example. We have casual consumers who are interested in easy to create content,, but we also have widget developers who want to know if they should code their widgets in Javascript or Flash (yeah, I’m not too clear on the differences either). When you have a diverse audience with varying interests, it’s important to experiment and test to see what works and what people are responding to—to find the common ground so to speak. Social media is all about embracing experimentation to find the right mix of interesting content.

Remember that social media sites aren’t just for “marketing”.

Social media is all about online conversations. It’s a place to listen to your users and encourage participation. Using social media simply for “marketing” purposes not only ensures that you’ll never realize the full value of social media marketing, it also means that you run a high chance of alienating your community of followers. Consider using social media sites as a means to respond to users’ needs and ideas. Done correctly, social media can lead to new product ideas, consumer insight, and even cost-effective customer service.

Avoid constant one-sided product promotions.

Nobody likes constant promotions thrown their way, especially if they’re not relevant. Remember your fans and followers are choosing to follow your brand or business because they believe they derive some sort of value from it. When promoting products or services, make it relevant and “news worthy”, something you yourself would be interested in.

Show some personality.

As my Director of User Experience would say “Is your company run by humans or robots?”. People want to follow someone they can relate to. Whenever possible (and appropriate) try to incorporate humor and personality into your social media sites. I’m also a big fan of including staff pictures—it lets people see who’s behind their favorite brands (and assures them the brand isn’t really run by robots).

Above all else—have fun!

Remember social media is about fun and engagement. It’s about establishing person to person connections and promoting community buzz. If you’re passionate and interested in your brand’s product(s), your attitude will come across and your readers will react favorably. Also I’ve found that occasionally giving a shout-out to your supervisors never hurts either. Mr. Penston (a.k.a. the” boss man”), that was for you.

—When she’s not being made fun of by the development team for her lack of coding knowledge, Jillian is doing all things marketing, including crafting Widgetbox’s social media strategy.

Widgetbox makes it easy for your brand or business to create a professional-looking Facebook Fan Page with our customizable Fan Page Apps.

Our Facebook Fan Page Apps allow you to easily create personalized, engaging apps that extend your marketing brand, with no coding knowledge necessary. In just a few minutes you can design apps that include your company’s logo, customized header and footers, uploaded background images, and multiple design and styling choices.

Some examples of our Facebook Fan Page Apps include:

• Blog: Instantly put your blog feed or any other RSS content on your Facebook Fan Page
• Twitter: Connect with followers by easily adding your Twitter updates to your Facebook Fan Page
• Gallery: Create a gallery of spotlight articles about your company
• Poll: Create fun and unique custom polls to engage your fans, acquire new leads, and get valuable feedback

Facebook Fan Page apps are only available to our Publisher Pro and Business Pro users.

If you’re not currently a Publisher Pro or Business Pro user , you can go Pro for free and start using Pro features such as our customizable Facebook Fan Page apps.

Learn more about our Facebook Fan Page Apps »

With only a few days left till the new year, Widgetbox has everything you need for planning your New Year’s Eve festivities.

Whether you’re looking for a restaurant, nightclub, late night bar, or a countdown—Widgetbox has everything you need to plan an entertaining New Year’s Eve.

Here are a few of our favorite widgets to help you plan your big night:

• Diddit—A fun and easy way to discover new stuff to do
• Yelp Search Widget—Find reviews on restaurants, bars, and nightclubs near you
• Pub Walk Late Night Bars—Find bars and late night food in your area
• NYE Countdown—A countdown till 2010
• Discover Things to Do—Find what’s going on or post events, concerts, festivals, live music, and other things to do near you

		“I want back the Megatron Transformer toy that my cousin broke when I was 8″
		“A cell phone that’s not busted, and by not busted, I mean not a cheap free phone I received with my last contract renewal”
		“Urban Curry Chicken Tikka Masala”
		“Two wishes actually—no Support emails over Christmas, and for my local convenience store to start selling Vitamin Water 10″
		“For Ohio State to win the Rose Bowl and bring some respectability back to the Big 10. Go Buckeyes!!!”
		“For my UPS package to arrive”
		“Canon EF 135mm f2L lens”
		“Sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads”
		“The State: The Complete Series. One of my favorite comedy sketch group from the 90’s is finally available on DVD.”
		“A TiVo HD so the full potential of my TV can be realized.”

Happy Holidays From All of Us Here At Widgetbox

Our new Widgetbox Ad Campaigns are designed for companies and brands who want to promote their widgets to a larger audience. You’ll drive more installations of your widgets and promote your brand’s content on the Widgetbox platform.

With our unique ad campaigns you’ll turn your content into customized widgets that you promote throughout the Widgetbox site. You’ll be able to turn your blog, Twitter feed, YouTube video, or just about any other content into an appealing widget for potential customers. The dynamic nature of the widget allows your content to be more relevant and engaging to your audience than any traditional static banner ad.

Best of all, advertising with Widgetbox Ad Campaigns allow you to achieve multiple marketing goals with single ad units. You’ll increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.

Get started today with Widgetbox Ad Campaigns »

Learn More »

Simply enter in your blog or feed-based address (URL) and your feed will automatically be converted into a Blidget you can share with others.

Examples of content feeds that can go into a Blidget include:

• Blogs
• Twitter updates or favorites
• Flickr photostreams
• YouTube videos
• And more!

As with all of our widgets, Blidgets can be placed just about anywhere: MySpace, Blogger, Facebook, TypePad, iGoogle or your favorite website.

To further customize your Blidget and take advantage of some just-released features, Go Pro.

The new features available to Pro subscribers include:

1. Feature Pro templates in-Blidget. Pro users can use template widgets to easily create customized content such as slideshows, polls, forms, or countdowns, and include that content as separate in-Blidget tabs.
2. Include different scrollbar designs or opt to hide the scrollbar. Choose from three distinct scrollbar designs—or opt not to display a scrollbar altogether.
3. Limit the number of posts or videos that appear. Pro users can decide how many posts they want to appear in their Blidget—as few as one post or as many as they’d like to share.

Get started making a Blidget »

Just like all of our installs to Facebook—installing a widget to a Fan Page is quick and easy, and can be done in just minutes. Seriously!

Check out our gallery of over 100,000 fun and customizable widgets and start sharing them with even more people.

Got any more suggestions on how we can make Widgetbox even better for you? Let us know!

WorldofGood.com by eBay is an online marketplace that allows you to shop by your values for products ranging from food and clothing to art and housewares. Every seller, producer, or product on WorldofGood.com is screened by a third-party Trust Provider organization to ensure that all products available for purchase are People Positive and Eco Positive.

You’ll find a variety of unique gift ideas that are fair trade, sweatshop-free, animal and eco-friendly, and support local communities. Best of all for every gift you purchase, you’ll be able to view the artist(s) who created the product, see where they’re from, and learn how your purchase benefits them.

Some of our favorite gifts include:

• Hand-crafted jewelry and housewares
• Organic clothing
• Fair Trade coffees and chocolates
• All natural bath products
• Eco-friendly toys

This holiday season we hope you’ll take advantage of WorldofGood.com to give a gift that gives back.