Widgets are small programming codes embedded in image files that can be manipulated to perform tasks for the user. Examples of widgets are desktop icons, RSS feeds, web browser controls, interactive graphs and charts.

What can widgets do for you?

Widgets are easy to use and extremely versatile social media tools. They can be easily embedded onto any social networking site, blog, personal homepage, or desktop to provide user-specific information, extra functionality and sometimes, even fun and games. Widgets demonstrate the power of simplicity and innovation that finds a full-bodied representation in social media optimization.

When you give your users the right to use an embedded code, you give them the power to promote your brand without even having to lift a finger. Because each time someone sees your widget on their website, blog or social networking site profile, all they have to do to visit your website homepage is to click on it.

You can use widgets to create links to information that would otherwise be impossible to track and organize. Social bookmarking sites use widgets to track, organize and collect web pages that pique the interest of users. Users click on the widget provided to save the URL of the page in a list on their social profile with the inclination to return to link when needed.

Simply put, a widget makes life easy. Subscribing to syndicated content, bookmarking a site, sending files, images, or other media to friends and colleagues, getting linked to the parent site of a shopping portal, employing a widget makes it happen in a single click.