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.

Internet marketing blueprints. The much searched-for golden egg of making money on the Internet. We are all searching for that one effective, sure-fire, guaranteed step-by-step guide to riches. Preferably, it should be “secret” and “never-before-revealed”. We are all ready to make the sacrifices of time and effort. And we are even ready to learn a few skills (HTML, how to use FTP, CPanel etc.) All we need is someone to give us the exact steps. The formula. “Just tell me everything I need to DO!” Here is what Ralph Waldo Emerson has to say about this:

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

An Internet Marketing blueprint is, in essence, a “method”. So we could paraphrase and get:

“As to Internet Marketing blueprints there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully create his own Internet Marketing blueprints. The man who tries Internet Marketing blueprints, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Time and again, I read sales material about some way to make money on the Internet, and a key “benefit” of the product is that it is 100% Practical – No Theory!In Emerson’s terms, that means “100% Method – no Principles”. And in Emerson’s view – and mine – that is a recipe for failure. But people love the idea of “100% Practical” because it means (they assume) that they don’t have to think! They don’t mind working hard and perhaps learning a few skills, but thinking? – no thanks!

Here’s a specific example from my own experience. I recently signed up to follow a blueprint about Social Marketing. It is probably one of the best and most comprehensive step-by-step guides to building traffic using social networks and blogging. But I have to say…. “phew”! To be fair, the people who put it together make it clear that it’s hard work, and they don’t pretend there’s no thinking involved. But the amount of detail is massive. To follow it through requires a huge amount of dedication (which they make clear from the outset). And few people actually manage it all.

I quickly realized that I was never going to be able to follow all the steps, and for a lot of the time, I had no idea why many of the steps were there, nor what many of the terms meant. So I stopped following the steps and decided to try and extract the Principles.

What I’ve ended up with is a Mind Map containing the concepts, the principles and the resources organized in a convenient form. And now, I can develop my own blueprint – my own step-by-step guide – that fits in with my own needs and time availability.

The guys who put this system together are honest, respected people who know their field inside out and back to front, and they’ve put a huge amount of effort into making their system easily accessible and easy to use. But it could be so much better. They are no different from 99% of other people providing guidance in the Internet Marketing world (and many other worlds as well). Knowing a subject well is not a qualification for being able to organize and structure it so that others can learn it.

The way people learn, the mix of theory and practice, the different types of expertise, and how they are acquired and developed, the forms of practical support needed for different types of task and different stages of learning – these are all deep and complex issues that are not considered by people creating learning and guidance systems. These are – dare I say it – knowledge management issues!

(This article may be freely used on websites and ezines, provided it is not edited in any way – including this statement – and that the resource box below is also included. All links must be replicated unchanged.)