Most people don’t get married after the first date.  It takes time to build a trustworthy relationship.

Traditional marketing and advertising still works.  However, companies who are aware they need to strengthen their brands through social media relationships with consumers are more likely to prosper no matter what we hear on the news about the economy.

So, exactly what is social media?  If you don’t know what social media is, consider this your first date.

Facebook is the current network of choice for most people with over 250 million active users.  Facebook has tools in place that lets you hone in on target demographics of the people you want to reach.  Get involved by setting up a personal page then a page or group for your company. Do you have a Facebook page?

Twitter is good for is keeping people informed and establishing fun and interesting relationships between current or potential clients and your brand by creating links to your website or other social media sites.  Don’t plug your products and services with every tweet.  Keep it fun and informative.  Are you tweeting yet?

Marketing has traditionally focused on the Four Ps – Pricing, Product, Promotion, and Place.

But in today’s demanding environment, marketers need to be focused on an additional set of letters – three Os and an I:  Online, Offline, Outbound, and Inbound.

These letters represent new channels for marketing and new challenges for coordination, management, and measurement.

If you’re not online and generating inbound traffic, you might find your business offline and outbound for failure.

Are you ready for the three Os and the I?  Ready or not, they’re here.

If you are finally ready to get serious about social media, here are four key steps to help you develop an effective strategy:

Step 1: Assess your findability. Where do your customers go online when they’re looking for your product category?  Go there and see if you can find you.

Step 2:  Establish credibility. It is of the utmost importance to establish trust and credibility in social media.  If you talk about how your company or brand is the best, you’ll fail at both.  Just like a real conversation, you should provide value and expertise, be transparent and identify yourself as a representative of the brand.  Your goal should be to participate in the conversation and provide a credible viewpoint.

Step 3:  Enhance reality. This is your opportunity to be an expert where you are an expert… not in a boastful way… in a knowledgeable way that can truly help others.  Being an expert, without coming across as an expert, will go a long way to enhancing the reality of your brand image in social media.

Step 4: Measure Impeccability. Monitor your online reputation.  Gauge your online reputation by utilizing website analytics tools to measure visitors’ time on your site, bounce rate and referring traffic data.  Be sure to establish a baseline at the beginning of each social media campaign so you can accurately measure results.

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There’s a lot more to social media than merely creating a Facebook page.  Social media offers tremendous opportunity.  So, are you dating social media or are you ready to get married?  Those who get serious with social media will derive serious value from it.  It’s that simple.