Bill Baird's Marketing Blog-O-Rama

How to Use Widgets to Build Audience

Some people call them “widgets”. Others prefer the term, "Facebook application" or "Google gadgets," and so on. But whatever you call them, they’re a powerful way to build audience by enabling your most passionate fans to use your content to promote your Web site while enhancing their own Web pages.

So what are they? 

A widget is a piece of code that you make available to third parties which they  can paste onto their own web page which provides a small window of content or functionality from your site to theirs—content that you control.  It can be headlines with article summaries;  data;  a photo;  or other functionality.

They’ve existed for a few years as ways for site publishers to exchange content and traffic.  But now, with the trend towards user-controlled content, they’re becoming a user-driven phenomenon.  Fans of a site can now share their favorite content with friends, adding these widgets to their Facebook pages, their blogs, profiles and on their Homepage on sites such as iGoogle.

The widget provides a dynamic tidbit of the publisher’s content on the user’s page. The content can be changed by the publisher on a regular basis.  For example, here’s a snapshot of National Geographic’s widget, with rotating thumbnail shots of stunning photos:

You can also create a widget with a feed of headlines and/or data specific to your content niche, such as this example from TheStreet.com:

And yet another widget strategy is to provide a choice of content, such as this widget from YogaJournal.com, which enables the user to select a pose using the links on the right. Thousands of yoga instructors worldwide can click the button and add this to their own site pages, in effect acting as a linked ad to Yoga Journal that’s hosted by its most passionate readers:

How does the widget draw traffic to your site?

When the visitor clicks on the tidbit of content in the widget, it takes them to the corresponding detailed web page on the publisher’s site. And this means that, bingo—you’ve just gotten a free visitor and added awareness of your brand.


How to promote the widget

Wherever it appears, you should provide a button below it saying "Get this widget."

Plan to use every opportunity you can to remind your most passionate and loyal website users to get the widget. Place it as a feature on your home page.  Announce it in your email newsletter, with a graphic shot and a prominent button to try it and obtain it.  And talk about it in the magazine itself to help build your readers’ interest in visiting the website.


Should You Try Widgets?  Ask Your Audience.

All this social networking stuff is exciting. Yeah, yeah, it’s the stuff of the future. I know, it’s a New World—blah, blah, blah. But when dealing with the natural hype around Web marketing, you need to follow your audience—and not chase after the latest marketing fad.

So before jumping onto the widget bandwagon, ask your audience about their own use of social media. Are they on Facebook? Do they use iGoogle? Do they have blogs of their own or visit them? While a widget has great benefits even if it’s simply offered to other publishers to enhance their content, be sure that you have a solid marketing plan behind this strategy before investing the effort.


Bill Baird is a leading subscription marketing and audience development advisor to publishers on the Web. His clients include The Motley Fool, Consumerreports.org, NetDetective.com and EdWeek.org. He is also the creator of SPARKwatch, a best practice research and advisory service for web marketers.  He can be reached at (203) 838-5444 or at http://www.bairddirect.com.

How to Create a Vibrant Web Community Site

Are you adding social media or social networking features to your website?  Or you already did, but the traffic just isn't happening?

If so, you need to know that traffic from user-generated content doesn’t happen on its own (especially at the start). You’ll need to build in specific processes to ensure the content quantity, quality and timeliness. And you’ll also need to use some simple direct marketing tactics to motivate them to participate.

These should be part of a thoughtful, integrated plan across multiple disciplines, including IT functionality, editor participation, and email marketing. Here are some of the strategies you need to include. (NOTE: for the sake of brevity, I’ll use a forum as an example, but these concepts apply to most Web 2.0 content.)


Step 1: Create Visitor Retrieval “Hooks”.

1. Email Confirmation. After a visitor has registered and posted their first message, send them an email confirmation so that they’ll later remember where they posted their question or answer.

Remember to include very specific calls to action to return to the forum. Also include copy telling them about the rest of the site, and provide links to encourage further visits.


2. Event-Driven Emails. When a registrant has posted a comment or answered a posted question, an email should be sent to the person who posted the original item to alert them that an answer has been posted. Again, make this email very action-oriented.

If the recipient doesn’t return within a pre-set time period, consider sending them a “Last Chance” reminder warning that their posting may be removed from the forum unless they return.


3. Formal On-Site and eNewsletter Promotion. Feature the most notable and popular postings in lots of places on your site, including pages outside of the forum; in your routine email newsletter; and inside your print publication. This will drive more readers to the site. (Just be sure, when a visitor registers, to include a provision that by registering they are providing you with their permission to re-purpose their content.)


Step 2: Motivate Visitors to Participate.

1. Editor’s Picks. Encourage your editors to feature postings in or near their own articles. Being an official “Editor’s Pick” is a big ego boost to the recipient, as well as encouraging word-of-mouth, and will expand their own usage and turn them into evangelists for the forum.

In addition to providing added (cost-free) content sources, this practice also enables you to draw attention to useful posts which often go un-noticed because the topic/subject line was too cryptic to draw attention.


2. Member Ratings. Provide visitors (or the original posting member) with the opportunity to rate the quality of comments and answers. Automatically tie those ratings back to the registrant’s own record. Everyone wants to be an expert, and once again, this appeals to users’ ego.

In addition to triggering return visits from the registrant to see how they’re rated, this enables you to post the top point-winners in a prominent place. This will then spur competition among your registrants to provide the best-rated quality and quantity.

For many visitors, their reputation is their livelihood, and for others it’s simply an ego thing. Either way, this last function is a powerful accelerant to your community’s content quality, quantity and timeliness.


3. A Bribe. Offer a financial reward to those who provide answers and tips which are selected by your editors to be published. This also enables you to publicize the forum to your readers by having a piece of news to share with them about this reason to come to the forum and participate.


4. Provide Personal Profiles. A new trend in forums is to enable registrants to also post their own profile, with their picture and more information about them, including their email address if they choose to provide it. This enables social networking take place, without having to provide the functionality of a social networking hub in itself.

This enables registrants to click on a link to the profile of a member who posted their answer (or question) and to contact them when they have something in common. Just be sure to apply the same direct marketing principles described in the section above to encourage new registrants to take the action to post their profile.

You’ll also need to provide registrants with the ability to opt out of providing such details.


Step 3: Populate the community.

Got your functionality in place now? All ready to launch? Great! Now … DON’T DO IT YET! Avoid the urge to start with a big splash or you’ll soon feel the pain of a belly flop. It’s best to set expectations and ensure that, when visitors first go to the forum, they find something good there. Here are some strategies and tactics to make that happen.


1. The Sneak Preview Beta Test. Start with a “sneak preview, early-access” promotional invitation to be a Beta tester. Send it to a subset of opted-in email recipients from your email newsletter, explaining that they are among a select few who are being provided free access during the Beta phase in return for their feedback.

Most importantly, get your editors to invite their own contacts within the industry, and to also have editors post their own questions and answers as members.

Using the phrase “Beta tester” in the invitation sets visitors’ expectations for content quality and quantity. Then you can gradually ramp up from there.


2. Category Management. Avoid creating a bunch of categories until there is sufficient posting volume. It’s better to arrive and find 20 different threads in a single main forum vs. two in each sub-section. Over time you can create subcategories.


3. Appoint Forum Experts. This individual (or group of individuals) are committed in advance to ensuring that postings receive answers, including one from them if no-one else is posting. They can also act as your advisory board and content evangelists.

These may initially need to be editors, freelancers, or others in your niche with a vested interest in spreading their own name and wisdom. Once the forum has been adequately populated and visitor volume is adequate, however, their role can shift to that of a content monitor vs. a content provider.


A Word About Inappropriate Content. First, you need to post some rules about forum conduct (such as not promoting individual products or services, raging, using derogatory or sexual language, etc.).

Then recognize that, while the Forum Experts can be “content cops” to ensure content is appropriate, users will generally do this more efficiently for you if you provide them with the opportunity to do so.

A single Forum Expert can’t be everywhere at once – but multiple users can be, and if the forum is an active community, they’ll report it so your expert can investigate it and remove it, warn the registrant who posted it, etc..


Bill Baird is a leading subscription marketing advisor to publishers on the web. His clients include Consumerreports.org, NetDetective.com and EdWeek.org. He is also the creator of SPARKwatch, a best practice research and advisory service for web marketers. He can be reached at (203) 838-5444 or at http://www.bairddirect.com.