Meebo is an online instant messaging client that lets you connect to multiple networks from your browser. Well, the nice people over at Meebo have another great app out that I have yet to mention – the Meebo Bar.

The Meebo Bar is a toolbar that sits at the bottom of the screen and enables users to share stories, receive live updates, and chat with others – all while using your site. It adds a level of social interaction to your site that your users can appreciate.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to utilize the Meebo Bar and install it on your blog.

1. Get The Bar

If you want to get the Meebo Bar for your website or blog, the first thing you need to do is download the bar from bar.meebo.com.

Just click Get It Now and you are taken to a signup page. Enter in your credentials (i.e. username, password, email) and click Continue to go to the next page.

On the next page you are asked for your site’s name and the URL. Fill in the information and click Continue one more time.

Now you should be at the Meebo Messenger Dashboard. Here you can select which platform you would like to install the bar on. Your choices are TypePad, WordPress (self hosted), Blogger, Movable Type, or Other.

Select the option that best describes your website and a set of instructions will unfold that will walk you through the installation. Once you copy your code or install your plugin, click Next–>. Congratulations, the bar should be on your site. Now it’s time to customize.

2. Customize

If you click Go to my Button Settings, you are taken to the control panel. From here, you can customize your Meebo Messenger bar with all kinds of social icons, including Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Flickr. Drag and drop the ones you want.

You can add a Digg button so people can digg your content and an RSS button so they can subscribe to your feed. Use a Meebo chat icon so users can IM their friends (or you!) from your site. You can even create custom buttons from the Overview page.

3. Monitor The Stats

Once you have your bar set up, you can monitor how it is being used from the Stats page on the dashboard. The page tracks shares by type, by intention, button clicks, clicks by referrers, and page views.

What do you think of the Meebo Bar? Will you be using it on your site? Do you use a different toolbar? Let us know in the comments!