AddThis enables you to share articles, videos, and more to any social site on the web. But today, we’re asking you to share something more to help the people of Japan.

Words cannot begin to describe the damage, physical and emotional, that the people of Japan are currently experiencing following the massive earthquake and tsunami that ravaged their island country on March 11. The nation faces a long road of recovery and reconstruction — a road they cannot afford to walk down alone.

That is why we encourage you to donate to the Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. The Red Cross is an amazing organization that is dedicated to assisting disaster relief and we strongly support their efforts.

To show our support for this cause, we will be giving millions of people an opportunity to make a donation in support of the victims in Japan after every share made with AddThis across the 8MM sites on the web. After sharing with AddThis this week, we hope you will ‘share again’ with the people in Japan – they need our help.

In a recent study done by Lijit, AddThis was shown to be #6 in a list of the top 50 tools used by publishers. These included tools for analytics, social networking, micro-blogging, bookmarking, etc.

AddThis hung out at the top with the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Thanks to all the publishers and our wonderful community for using AddThis! We continually strive to make a great product and hope that you find it an integral part of your online social solutions.

The AddThis for Firefox toolbar is a great way to make sharing easy from any site on the web and it’s fully customizable. Here are some tips to make it work for you.

The Wrench is Your Friend!

Customize Your Services. By default the toolbar shows a list of some of the most popular services shared to using AddThis. But if you go into Options, you can add or remove any of the services displayed.

Other Display Options

• Choose what your service buttons look like! Do you want only the service icon or the text name or both?
• Picky about your browser real estate? Select only the Navigation toolbar OR the URL bar icon options and use the AddThis logo button for all your sharing.

If you have any ideas on how you would like to further customize your AddThis for Firefox toolbar, we are always soliciting feedback!

(Originally posted on the Clearspring blog.)

We were super pumped for our company Clearspring, the makers of AddThis, to be featured in today’s “10 DC Start-Ups You Need to Know About” article by The Next Web!

Congratulations to the hardworking Clearspring team, and of course many thanks to our supporters, especially the users of the AddThis platform.

And also a big congratulations to the other companies featured on the list! Being in such good company makes these sorts of milestones that much sweeter.

We are your Happiness Gurus! It is our job to make your experience with AddThis similar to a pleasant stroll down a beach (or along a beautiful grassy knoll, if sand isn’t your thing). Which is why we LOVE to hear from you – whether it be a technical question, a product request, or you’re just trying to sneak a preview of a top secret up-and-coming feature! We are available through all sorts of channels. Just pick your favorite one – or all of them! Let’s run down the list:

Email
You can use our handy dandy contact form, or email us directly at kori@addthis.com and justin@addthis.com. You will get a gracious and timely response through either!

Forum
Our super smart and savvy tech support team loves helping you solve all your technical questions or concerns in the forum.

Twitter
Twitter is an amazing tool for reaching out to those using AddThis. We monitor what people are saying and if you have an issue, whether you tell us directly or not, you better believe we’ll get in touch and do our best to make sure you are a happy customer. Go ahead and give us a follow, if you feel so inclined.

Facebook
Facebook pages aren’t only for showing off your product or brand, but more importantly are another channel for users and customers to have a voice. Please visit our page and drop us a line.

Blog
Hey, betcha didn’t think of this one, huh? Please post a comment whenever you have any feedback. Feedback is SO important to us, as it’s what we use to make our product better for YOU.

We sincerely hope this encourages you to reach out to us whenever you feel the urge. Even if you are just saying hey or want to send us a picture of your dog. No, really, we love dogs!

An important thing many AddThis users don’t realize is the impact of button placement and implementation. Something as simple as placing a share function at the top of an article instead of the bottom could mean the difference between 100 shares and 1000 shares. So, here are three tips for getting the most shares out of your AddThis implementation:

1.) Put your share button high on the page.
The more noticeable your button is, the more people will use it to share with their friends, which in turn will lead to more traffic. Put it right in front of their faces and don’t make them scroll to find it.

2.) Use the AddThis toolbox or share counter.
Even the type of button you place on your site has a great effect on how much your content gets shared. Our research has shown that the AddThis Toolbox performs four times better than the stand-alone share button. And our new share counter is quickly showing to be a top notch performer as well. We encourage users to keep up with our latest offerings so the experience remains fresh.

3.) Reduce the number of clicks it takes to share.
Another great way to see more activity is by lessening the number of clicks it takes a user to share your content. For example, using the AddThis popup window instead of making your users have to click and open a service list window. Less work equals more shares!

To get a more visual idea, here are some examples of excellent AddThis implementations (click images for larger version):

Answers.com

Answers.com has great toolbox placement at the top of their homepage with the popup.

ABCNews.com

ABC News has a great customized share bar across the top of their articles with a “more” button.

IGN.com

Gaming site IGN.com has another great custom implementation with a pop-out window when you hover over the AddThis logo.

We are certain if you take these tips into consideration, you will see a spike in sharing. If you do makes changes to your implementation, please send us your success story. We love hearing from you and maybe you’ll end up featured on the AddThis blog!