Video: The pitfalls no one tells you about Widgets (3 min with Rodney Rumford)

Categories: Facebook Strategy, Video, Widget StrategyPosted on December 15th, 2007

Rodney Rumford, of FaceReviews, one of the speakers at the Web Community Forum shared his expertise with Widgets, which are mini-applications that can be deployed on top of existing communities –like Facebook.

Rodney shares some of the pitfalls to watch out for, as well as gives some specific actionable steps to overcome these issues. Measurement is key in adjusting a product in mid-flight.

According to Rodney, two attributes that make a successful widget are engagement and viral growth. Instead of the term engagement, I prefer attributes like attention or interaction or both.

It was great to catch a beautiful view of Seattle, rare this time of year due to the rain.

Share This Post:

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 6:14 am and is filed under Facebook Strategy, Video, Widget Strategy. 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.

Jeremiah,
It was a pleasure to chat and share this relevant information with your audience. Since you try to keep these videos under 3 minutes I did not have the opportunity to share the following… Enjoy.

How to Create Gravity in Social Networks:
Key issues for brands engaging in Facebook (and now Bebo) with an application.

1. Go light handed on the branding: An application can be “sponsored” by a brand. Don’t beat users over the head.

2. Build apps that “Look and Feel” like facebook. Don’t have graphics with colors that overpower or clash with the facebook frame if possible.

3. Don’t use rounded tabs for navigation. 95% of facebook apps use the same style of tab. Do the same. Users engage with familiarity of design.

4. Plan on A/B split testing & measurement for ongoing tweaks of your application.

5. Change 1 thing at a time for iterations and measurement towards desired metrics.

6. Pay very close attention to any trend or change in behavior; Un-install rate increasing for example.

7. Wording is very critical for influencing behavior. Change and measure.

8. Pay close attention to the marketing flow of how you pull users through your application and force desired behaviors.

9. Consider “levels” or “rewards” as an incentive for participation. This means unlocking specific features of the app when a user takes desired behaviors.

10. Invites are critical. Do it right.

11. Look at how you can easily expose behaviors through the viral carrier mechanisms available (mini-feed, news-feed, notifications, email, participatory sharing, etc.) without the user not having to think about sharing information.

12. I am done for now. I have at least 20 more.

Cheers!
Rodney Rumford
Publisher:FaceReviews.com

Posted by Rodney Rumford on December 15th, 2007 at 6:51 am

Excellent tips, amazing you published this in just a few minutes.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on December 15th, 2007 at 7:09 am

Great tips, Rodney. Already forwarding some of them on to coworkers with exclamation marks (”we need to start measuring the results of our copy changes!!”).