StickiWidgets

Activision has released a Guitar Hero III widget for you to play with. There are 3 playable songs ranging from easy to hard: “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour, “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper, and “Metal Heavy Lady” by Lions.

It’s a pretty neat little game. But, be warned, it’s difficult to play since it uses the keyboard.

If you are persistent and continue to play, you may land yourself on the leaderboard. Stay there long enough and you can become eligible to win prizes from Rocket XL and Activision.

This is a great way to use widgets as a marketing tool. Have fun and enjoy!

[via Widgets Lab]

iMedia Connection has a post up, “4 widget best practices” by Nikole Brake, containing good information on launching widget campaigns. The best practices are specific to widget campaigns and are a good addition to the attributes of a successful social network marketing campaigns post by Jeremiah Owyang from a few days ago.

4 widget best practices

If you’re launching a widget campaign, consider these strategic and technical factors to maximize your campaign’s impact.

The intense popularity of widgets, gadgets, Facebook applications and their kin has advertisers and publishers eager to get on board. But before you invest in a widgetized advertising campaign, there are a number of strategic and technical factors to consider. There are also important guidelines to follow to ensure you get the most from your investment.

Are you ready to let go?
That’s the first question to ask yourself, because consumers interact with widgets (and thus your content) outside the confines of your website…

Serve a purpose, and serve it fresh
Widgets shouldn’t simply be advertisements for your content or service…

Stick with standards and partners you know
On the development side, adhering to IAB standards maximizes the number of potential placements for your widget…

The distribution question
Once you’ve created your widget, how do you get it to fly?…

Head over to iMedia Connection for the full post.

[via Snipperoo Blog]

Jeremiah Owyang has a great list of attributes that characterize successful campaigns targeting social networks. While not all widgets are part of a marketing campaign, the list is still very applicable to all widgets. It’s definitely a must read. Here are the first three items from the list, head on over to Jeremiah’s blog for the complete list. Don’t forget to check out the comments for some good feedback and conversations.

Marketing Campaigns on Social Networks share the following attributes:

• Meets a business objective: First and foremost, any marketing campaign or activity should match with a business objective, regardless of the tools being used.
• Encourage Member Interaction: The most successful social networking campaigns and efforts involve the audience.
• Quickly scale: Social networks are designed for information to quickly move from member to member, so campaigns that lean on these capabilities perform the best. These attributes known as Velocity, Viralness, and Spread are key.

“What makes a Successful Marketing Campaign on Social Networks?” - Web Strategy by Jeremiah