Using Google Toolbar, Yahoo! Toolbar, etc. etc.? Make your own!

Odds are you’ve probably got some sort of toolbar built into your browser, be it from Google or Yahoo or any of the thousands of spyware peddlers out there. Maybe you use it because it organizes your bookmarks more efficiently, or because it has games built into it, or flashes the latest headlines at you. Or maybe you don’t even know how to get rid of it. Bottom line: These things are just awesome from a PR perspective. Imagine having your own branded toolbar in front of a person’s eyeballs as they surf. Imagine them using the toolbar and scrolling past all your latest news.

There’s a company called Conduit that makes that dream a reality.

Make my own toolbar? Do I look like a programmer/geek/IT person/nerd/etc.?
Those lovely, wonderful people at Conduit have made it so gosh darn easy to make your own toolbar that your uncle igor could do it. The site essentially holds your hand as you walk through a wizard interface:

• It asks you for the URL of your website
• Lets your customize the look of your logo (though you can use your own image if you prefer)
• Let users search the web with a search engine of your choosing
• Include an RSS feed reader (including links to your own RSS feeds!)
• Allows you to send messages to your users
• Includes a radio for streaming audio (do you have a podcast yet???)

And its free.

What’s the value to me and my clients?
Easy-peasy. This is about building loyalty while enforcing top of mind awareness. By creating a genuinely useful toolbar that will help users as they surf all day — and unobtrusively shares your latest news or messages — you’re basically becoming an integral part of your target’s life.

A toolbar is an excellent part of any overall social media strategy and works (dare I say, synergizes? yeck!) nicely with other offerings such as podcasts and widgets. Take a look at Conduit’s site and see what they offer — it’s guaranteed to spark some thinking.