AddThis, the Virginia-based maker of content sharing widgets just made it a whole lot easier for marketers to use its tools.
By launching an online marketplace, AddThis is introducing a entire suite of both free and subscription-based content sharing and engagement tools. However, it has simplified the onboarding process for the widgets, so that it’s the content publishers themselves, and not the site developers who can deploy them quickly and easily.
The new Tools Gallery includes widgets for social sharing buttons, content recommendation and for following social media accounts, with eatures varying according to price. Customers both new and old can update and apply the new widgets directly from the Tools Gallery without having to change any underlying code. AddThis CMO Scott Allan says the company has worked to fundamentally change how its tools are being added to websites, making it less technical and dependent on the site developers.
“Marketers don’t always have the technical skills or resources to work with HTML code and JavaScript,” says Allan. “Now, a marketer with no HTML skills can go to the Tools gallery, preview how a widget will look on their page, apply it to the site, test it out and view the results in the analytics dashboard.”
AddThis has also updated its analytics dashboard which allows publishers to see which content is performing the best when it comes to shares, and also the manner in which it is being engaged with. Allan says content engagement goes beyond how many times an article is shared on social, and AddThis allows users to have a holistic view of how it is being consumed. “People engage with content in other ways, such as linking to it, putting it in an email, copying and pasting certain parts and printing it,” says Allan. The new analytics provide figures for these not-obvious engagement channels to create a more complete evaluation for the publisher.
For its premium content-recommendation widget, AddThis is introducing a real-time data tracking component which allows it to automatically recommend content based on the visitors previous browsing history. For example, if a site visitor has been spending a lot of time on sports site, the widget will automatically recommend an article in your site that is sports related. Allan says this will allow marketers to personalize their sites for each type of visitor, greatly increasing the chances of engagement.
