Unless you’ve been living in a bubble for the last few years, you know that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google—known as the "Gang of Four"—have been enormously successful businesses.

You may not know, however, exactly how they’ve redefined business. All of these companies use emerging technologies in interesting and innovative ways. They adapt extremely well and quickly to our changing world and routinely introduce compelling new offerings. They have revolutionized their relationships with users, customers, partners, vendors, developers, and the community. In short, they’ve created a powerful new business model: the modern-day platform.

For many people, the term platform conjures up the idea of having a business website or perhaps a blog and newsletter, with maybe some Twitter and other social media thrown in for good measure. But the platforms of the Gang of Four go far beyond mere websites with a few interesting services tied in. Because of the way these companies leverage their powerful platforms, they influence almost everyone on the planet every day.

Like it or not, we have entered the Age of the Platform. It doesn’t matter if your company is tiny or huge. The sooner your company understands how to build an effective platform, the more likely it is to survive and thrive in a world driven by rapid innovation and change.

Here are six ways small and medium-size businesses can be more like the Gang of Four.

Be Open and Collaborative

Many of Amazon’s customers become affiliates and send traffic its way; you can do something similar. Reach out to your vendors, customers, users, partners, and the community in search of new relationships and ideas. Find ways to make your offerings easy to access. Integrate them into different sites, services, and suites of products or services. Think about all the businesses in your area whose customers, partners, or offerings complement yours. For example, a local bookstore owner might team up with a nearby restaurant and arts group to stage regular dramatic readings. This can snowball into an annual festival, free publicity, more sales, and a partner program that attracts the restaurant’s customers to the bookstore.

Seek Intelligent Acquisitions, Extensions, and Directions

Just as Google altered its business by acquiring Android in 2005, your company can diversify, morph, and expand in smart ways. For example, a local accounting firm might purchase and deploy cloud-based accounting software. This not only expands its services and customer base, but can eventually transform its IT team into a software consulting business for other accounting firms. This can attract an offer for a teaching gig at the local community college. Perhaps it will extend its brand to include a forensic accounting offshoot of the business.

Make Little Bets; Encourage Experimentation

While you might not be able to afford multimillion-dollar acquisitions like the Gang of Four, you can take on different small projects and develop fresh ideas. Small ideas and side projects can fail without dire consequences, yet they can lead to big product and service innovations. For example, a local backpack manufacturing company might host a community-wide competition to repurpose its fabric scraps for profit.

Overshoot

If Mark Zuckerberg had taken Facebook to schools clamoring for it in 2005, his company would have died an early death, like Friendster and others did. Zuckerberg was smart enough to insist upon having sufficient technology before expanding Facebook. How might this concept apply to your business? Buy or build an office with extra, empty rooms. Keep enough products in your inventory so customers don’t have to wait. Book services well in advance so they don’t pile up and you don’t face cash flow issues. Don’t settle for yesterday’s technology solutions. Instead, figure out how much time, efficiency, and productivity you’ll gain by upgrading to a software suite that may exceed your needs at the moment. With rare exception, having too much is always better than not having enough.

Seek Breadth Over Depth

What if Apple just stuck to selling computers? The world would be worse off. We would have no iPhone, iPad, or iPod—among many other products. A shop known for selling amazing cupcakes might sell a line of baking items, add sit-down café tables, offer cooking classes, host decorating parties for kids, and have a dynamic online community of fans who participate in flavor-of-the-week contests, guest baker opportunities, and cupcake blogs.

Make Use of Other Platforms, Networks, and Technologies

Even Google has an official Facebook page. Facebook communicates via its official YouTube channel. Such cross-pollination is hardly uncommon these days. Today, businesses of all sizes can take advantage of many low-cost methods and existing tech tools to build or expand their own platforms. For example, WordPress is a popular blogging and publishing platform. Groupon can bring customers to your business. Salesforce.com enables a small company to act and operate like a big one. Many companies offer their apps and services for free—at least on a limited basis. For those who want to build new apps from scratch, sites like eLance allow them to connect with low-cost specialists of almost any vocation. All of the popular social-media sites offer great free branding tools.

Learn from the Gang of Four. Having a powerful and dynamic platform can help businesses withstand unforeseeable changes in the marketplace. Platforms can help generate revenue from unexpected places. They can be a magnet for new customers, users, partners, and, perhaps best of all—buzz.

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Phil Simon is a four-time author, recognized technology expert, and speaker. His newest book is The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business.