The perfect platform for businesses to market their products and services online. This media realm is based on building connections and relationships with people who resonate with you. Then it can be used to market your products and services in a conversational way like we use to in times past when everyone gathered together on the front porch on Sunday afternoon to talk about their week.

Business owners everywhere are ready to figure out what their next marketing action step is. Disappointed and feeling frustrated with ineffective pages of print that only worked in the past. They want answers and need them now. With some knowledge, you too can take your enterprise and compete with the “Big Boys” or anyone else online for that matter. This is one time where “Size Doesn’t Matter.”

Time marches on and you either get going and learn new things or you miss the golden opportunity to be recognized as a go-to or expert for you profession or industry.

Don’t worry you won’t be sitting around reading about other people’s exploits or what they are eating,drinking, or doing unless you choose to. There is so much more to social media. It seems like the entire world is trying to take the plunge. Some business are touching their toes in to the waters while other dive right in. Either way I think you will find these 5 Critical Steps eye opening as well as helpful to your success. So what are the steps?

• Step 1 – Your Target Market. This is the most important steps for any marketing plan. Many business owners and entrepreneurs say anyone and everyone are their best customers. You need to be more specific. The more laser focused you become the quicker results arrive. Even if your company is well established, pinpoint who your ideal client is.
• Step 2 – Once you find that hungry crowd they will want what you have. What irritation itch or problem can you solve? What solutions do you have that they need? What pain or struggle is it that you can fix? Knowing this will guide you to the most effective way to providing answers to their burning questions.
• Step 3 – Content is important. You know your product or service best. In social marketing you have the opportunity to educate. Make people aware. Having said that you don’t just go online and push for a sale. Over the course of time people get to know you, trust you and of course choose to use you product or service.This is where you need to set aside your old ways of thinking. Friends and fans get to tell the world or anyone in their circle how great you and your company are. Word of mouth plays a vital role in your success. Social media takes it from a single handshake multiplies it many times over in an instant.
• Step 4 - Keywords can make the difference. Go to Google. Use the Keyword tool and look up the exact words that you need to use in your profile and content. It only takes a few minutes. Keep a list of these handy. If you still don’t find you have the time you can always hire an expert to do it for you.
• Step 5 - Join several social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Linked In. This is touching your toes to the water. Complete your profile, add your picture. Make sure your photo is acceptable in the business arena. Save the one of you drinking a beer for later.

This is just the beginning of what it takes to be connected to your local neighborhood and beyond. In no time you will be in the homes, offices and cell phones of your community. I’ll look forward to seeing you there.

If you have several different social media sites, such as MySpace, Imeem, Friendster, etc., the trick is to get them to interact with one another. It is difficult sometimes to keep up with friends who may be on different sites. Or rather, it was difficult until Google Gadgets and Open Social started their own social media marketing toolset.

Open Social is one of the most exciting things to happen to Google in a long time. This will allow you to build applications that will link many different websites to one API and will also allow the system to host other social applications as well. You need to have a bit of JavaScript knowledge and HTML, but Google provides you the tutorials to do this in their Open Social guide online.

In addition to Open Social, you can also use Google Gadgets to keep your marketing linked to your social networking sites. Google Gadgets can enable you to build a social application very inexpensively. If you are looking for a way to use social media as a marketing tool, Open Social and Google Gadgets are just the thing to help you achieve success.

Google Gadgets are bits of code that you can structure to your own website and use in links and signatures all over the internet. You can post links in many different places as your signature code. If your gadgets are created for your website, they will update as your website updates. One gadget can be put on all of your social networks to continually reflect changes in your website so that you do not have to do this by hand.

And by combining Google Gadgets with Open Social, you can use Social Marketing to its ultimate success. You can actually use one gadget that can virally spread across all of your different social networks through the Open Social application. This saves you time that can be spent taking care of business.

Combining Google Gadgets with Open Social, which has just become available to the public, is the best way to connect all of your social media sites together and keep them updated and connected to your website through a gadget.

Social media attracts billions of customers yearly. Years ago, the only social networking site was MySpace and a few others. Today, there are hundreds of different sites and more developing each day. Imagine being able to spread your marketing ideas across these different websites with one click of the mouse! Thanks to this new Google Technology, you can save a lot of time and reach a lot more potential customers on social sites by using Open Social. Adding Google Gadgets can keep it running without any more effort on your part.

If you want to promote your business or website on the internet through the effective means of social media, check out Open Social at Google and learn how to operate this user friendly program. This can be a vital source of marketing for your website.