We spend a lot of time adding applications to our social media profiles to pimp them out…but what about our blog? When is the last time you added something engaging and fun? Widgets can be a fun way to keep your blog content fresh, without a lot of work.

Slide is a cool media tool that creates a slideshow out of your pics. You can then create a variety of slideshows with special effects. Here’s one I created for my gardening blog: On it, I am scrolling my gardening photos so that my readers can see the fruits of my labors.

This widget was easy to build. You can gather existing photos from online profiles in Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and Photobucket. And yes, you can add sparkles and fog effects, but that just didn’t seem to fit with my theme.

Exporting this widget to social networking profiles is a snap. And it is easy enough to grab the code and embed the widget on a blog. Essentially, all of the work is done for you and your blog reaps the benefits.

You can also upload and create slick-looking videos. Then add them to YouTube or create a widget. Each video can have a custom frame (similar to the photo slide show to the right) which differentiates it from its surroundings.

I like this simple, engaging widget. It creates an eye-catching display of photo or video on your blog. And finding ways to add value and keep your content fresh is an important part of retaining readership.

Tags: Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, blog widget, slide

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 5:16 am and is filed under Blog Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.