Social Media Club DC Recap

On the heels of Ryan's post on "Getting Started with Widgets", Viget happened to host the December Social Media Club DC event, where our good friend Justin Thorp gave a presentation on "How Sharing Can Help You Reach More Users Online". For those who couldn't make the event, here's a quick recap:

People are spending more time online. Not just visiting your site or surfing the web, but connecting with others in social networks and online communities. While the impact of online socializing is obvious to many, Justin used a dinner party analogy to help drive the point home for the less savvy. When spending time with friends, family and co-workers in social situations, we converse on a variety of topics ranging from what we've been up to and what's interesting to us, to current events and television shows. People love to share. Social media tools have made it easier to share online - and people are eating it up.

The old distribution strategies are still in play - web sites, search, email - and are effective, but why not make your content shareable? In a couple clicks, users can take content from one place online (say, your website) and put it where they connect with others online (facebook, iGoogle, or their own blog). Widgets do just that. Justin gave a couple of great examples, many of which can be found on his Favorite Widgets blog. My personal favorite is the grassroots IheartPandora widget he and other ClearSpringers created.

Whether you like them or not, widgets are a viable option for marketers to reach folks. As with any social media marketing tools, you can either jump in or run the risk of getting left behind. In November 2007 alone, 81% of all Web users saw a widget - that's 148 million people or half the US population. Pretty impressive stat, especially given that Facebook has 130 million active users. For those companies, causes and blogs that have a limited following, find passionate users/customers and target them with your content. The succesful widgets tend to focus on simplcity.

People are watching your shows, reading your blog posts, buying your products or just stumbling upon what you have to offer - make it easy for them to share it with their friends, family and followers. So to sum up:

- People like to share

- People (Especially) like to share online

- Make your content shareable