Raising the (Social Tool) Bar
I’m sure at some point you’ve all noticed a toolbar located at the bottom of a website. Sometimes I don’t like how they look, but I’ve personally used Wibiya on my own site, TheWebBlend.com because they do offer some great features that can dramatically increase your number of visitors and page views. Installing one of these toolbars is fairly simple (and just as easy to uninstall) so why not give it a shot if you’re curious?
Here are some pros of putting a social toolbar on your website:
(1) Easy customization of look and feel to match your website’s design. (2) Offers translation of your website into another language. (3) Share pages on well-known social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. (4) Chat with your friends on Facebook or AOL straight from the toolbar. (5) Notify your readers about events, contests and promotions right from the toolbar. (6) Offers a fast way of searching your website.
Here are some cons of putting a social toolbar on your website:
(1) Taking up real-estate at the bottom of each page and covering content. (2) When you register, it can take days to finally get the code for the toolbar. (3) Many users simply don’t like the look of the toolbar.
If you know of any other Social Toolbars, leave a comment with a link and I’ll be sure to add it to the list. Thanks!
Wibiya
Wibiya enables blogs to integrate the most exciting services, applications and widgets of their choice into their blog through customized web-based toolbars. Our platform offers a one-stop solution for integrating, managing and tracking third-party applications.
Currently we offer a fixed set of tools such as creating a blog community via facebook connect, enabling twitter alerts on your blog and enabling post navigation but there is a lot to wait for as we will be adding more and more application through time.
Meebo
Meebo, the web platform for IM on any network or site. Meebo connects you to MSN, Yahoo, AOL/AIM, MySpace, Facebook, Google Talk, and many more!
Google Friend Connect
Google Friend Connect instantly awakens and strengthens the community that visits your site by enriching it with social features.
Ow.ly Social Bar 2.0
In the age of sharing, linking, retweeting, capped attention spans and character limits, people need things to be shorter, better, faster, stronger. The Ow.ly social bar is your answer. What does this mean for you, the content creator? The social media marketing wizard? The link sharing, social bookmarking and retweeting addict? Actually, we’ve packed this toolbar with so many useful features that we’d like to think it means quite a lot.
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