wibiya sharing toolbar
Notice the ever-increasing ‘sharing toolbars’ at the bottom of web pages you are browsing? Some are powered by Wibiya, others powered by Meebo. But, they all have the same common purpose: to integrate with your website and provide visitors sharing tools without ever having to leave your website therefore increasing the time a visitor spends on your website.
Readers can tweet, write on your Facebook page and share your content on Facebook. Readers can also search your latest tweets and view ‘tweeted’ content about the page they are reading. Add ons such as “Latest Post” or “Real Time Users” or a custom menu help to increase page views and traffic to your web content. Some tool bars enable you to communicate back to your website visitors through broadcast messages, notifications and alerts (all in real time) as well as participate in live chat rooms.
Now the $1,000,000 question: Do people click on these tool bar functions? Or, do visitors/readers view them as an annoyance because they slow down the page load and are distracting?
TechCrunch.com states “According to Quantcast, Wibiya is seeing 151 million monthly visitors to its toolbars. In contrast, Quantcast also reports that Meebo is currently seeing 143 million monthly visitors. Currently, Wibiya has more than 70,000 active websites using its toolbar, including TheStreet, TheOnion, Playboy, Philly.com, JellyBelly.com and more. Wibiya says that nearly 1000 new websites are adding the toolbar per day.”
Well, no offense to Quantcast, I decided to perform my own research study. (well, ok my sample study isn’t going to get me in the research publications) on Twitter regarding the use of toolbars didn’t result in a huge backlash of ‘hate tweets.’ A good sign. I asked around my friends and family…some didn’t even notice the tool bar on the site – not a ringing endorsement but not altogether negative. And, the average feedback, I was given, was “seems pretty cool.”
So…as a person who is always looking for new tools to use and recommend for the recruiting world of human resources…when will these sharing toolbars become popular (and even available) within applicant tracking systems and/or on the career sections of web sites? As a human resources professional, wouldn’t you like it if a visitor to your career site had the ability to ‘share’ via a plethora of social media tools your job postings to their network of tweeps, friends and followers? Wouldn’t it be great if you could dedicate 1 hour to ‘live chat’ with people visiting your microsite or other website? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to connect with your Twitter followers and your Facebook fans directly through a toolbar on your career site?
The possibilities of morphing what predominantly was creating as a marketing tool are endless within the recruitment world as well. Do you have any ‘toolbar’ sharing tips or tales? What is your opinion? Would you implement a ‘sharing toolbar’ yesterday if it meant you could increase your visibility with targeted skill sets? Share your comments!
