Widgets have become very popular with users of social media so widget marketing is a very good and low-cost way for a site owner to promote a product or a service on internet. Basically, there are three kinds of widgets (Facebook applications, Windows vista gadgets and Google Gadgets) and they essentially allow distributing content into external web connected environments.

What is widget marketing? According to Universal McCann, it is all about using the avenues of content distribution as an important part of your marketing mix in order to achieve marketing and communications objectives.

There are five trends (“TrendMarker”, February 2008) that explain why widgets and widget marketing are so important at the present:
•    Most of social networks, search engines and personalized homepage are becoming platforms for external content so the web usage will be more concentrated into fewer platforms. That’s why it is really important for the companies to exist inside these platforms.
•    Nowadays, everything is connected and all kinds of content are publishing elsewhere and the best way to do so is using widgets because they permit to pack and to keep control of the content published.
•    Most web platforms are opening their APIs. For instance, Facebook and Bebo are open platforms that permit users to use external applications.
•    Internet is everywhere. This means that widgets will be available everywhere too.
•    Everybody is a content generator and consumers are receptive to branded content only if it provides them genuine value.

An excellent example of desktop widget is the UPS widget. An offline and an online campaign were launched to direct consumers to a microsite where the UPS widget could be downloaded. This campaign created an important buzz in consumer and professional media. The microsite attracted more than 500 000 visits (14 000 downloads) and the traffic of UPS.com increased by more than 50% during the campaign period

In conclusion, one of the best ways of driving engagement and building a relationship with your customers is to make your customers integrate your branded widget into their social network, blog, or desktop. So do you want to be considered as a partner or as a supplier by your customers?