This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed some blogs using a socialbar toolbar within their webpages. For those unfamiliar, it is a little toolbar that appears at the bottom of the browser and combines a number of social and engagement widgets to make your blog sticky.
Over the past two days, I’ve been trying TicketMy’s on one of my blogs, a new Socialbar toolbar that is already taking the net by storm. So, I decided to write this post where you will find a fairly extensive overview of the benefits and features related to using this toolbar.
TicketMy’s Social-bar Overview
TicketMy’s Socialbar is a social toolbar that is always visible at the bottom of your web pages and includes more than 20 applications which facilitate easier access to a range of social media services. It enables you to post on social networks, translate, share on social networks, search your site, search google, and chat with your friends.
There is an option to make the socialbar visible only when a user engages with an article (scrolls down). So if you don’t use widgets that always take up space on your site, you’ll find this option very useful. Its very non-intrusive, and still serves the purpose.
One of my favorite features is a multi-IM chatting widget that combines the best of both Wibiya and Meebo. Anyway, you can also choose to chat through other well-known IM services like Gtalk, facebook chat, as messanger as well. Side-tab loads the social feature only when a user clicks on the tab (It takes just 1 second loading time).
Being the toolbar fully customizable you’re able to add a variety of applications that the default version do not include. They are all easy to use and offer much more flexibility in terms of customization of the social-bar and embedding options.
For those like me whom likes to mess around with ours theme, it allows you to customize Skin and color theme, size, positioning, and placement. Also, the bar can be used to look like facebook-style chat tab to a full horizontal bar.
In a nutshell the main applications include:
Real-time visitor feed – It shows readers how many others are online and what they’re reading.
Facebook and Twitter connect – It allows readers to see your twitter stream as well as tweet a link out about your page without leaving your page.
Integration of photo albums and Youtube channels
Multi-IM chat widget – It combines the best of both Wibiya and Meebog as. GTalk, Facebook chat, AIM, Yahoo as well.
Translate to 24 languages
Rising stories widget which shows trending stories
Site and google search to retain users – It allows readers to search through Google to your blog or the web.
There are quite a few other features that you can get by using TicketMy’s social toolbar.
The tool supports other popular social networking websites like digg, delicious, and google buzz. It is compatible with many Blogging Platforms through a drop-in plugins available for WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, Drupal, Movable type, Tumblr, and Ning.
Another useful feature is that the social-bar and widgets includes a social-analytics, which let you displays the number of users currently visiting your website and a dynamic geo-location user map. Not bad, right?
Here, are some benefits why I like this toolbar:
I found the toolbar to be very versatile and highly configurable by the user.
It stays pinned at the bottom of the page and can optionally be closed by your readers.
It encourage users to stay longer on your blog because they can instantly access applications.
You do not need anymore to add into your site, recent post widget, facebook or Twitter widget, because they are all integrated into the toolbar.
TicketMy Vs Wibiya Socialbar Toolbar, Which Is Better?
I have also tried Wibiya Toolbar about one month on my blog, and I have to say that both bars have a similar design and both have the same main features including Search, translation, random post, RSS, chat and so on. Also they are very easy to install, just uploading and activating a plugin.
However, I had to removed Wibiya due it’s not compatible with CrazyEgg. TicketMy’s socialbar seems to work fine with all the plugins installed on my blog, I do not know the other ones.
Another thing I don’t like in both the toolbar is that the option to close the toolbar should be a little more intuitive. Instead of the little down arrows, a “Close X” button would be more appreciated. TicketMy’s socialbar, however, includes an option to embed the bar such that it becomes visible only on when a user scrolls down, so that it doesn’t permanently take up space on your site.
Final Considerations
It is worth a try if your are considering to make your blog much more interactive, enable users to share their opinions, see the most recent and the most popular content on your website and view your photo and video albums, thus increasing the time they spend on your website. Don’t worry, it doesn’t cost you anything. Yes, the best part is that is totally free ($0) to use.
