According to Wikipedia, social media optimization is “is the methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. SMO is one of two online methods of website optimization; the other method is search engine optimization or SEO.” At Turbo Social Media we believe that social media optimization (SMO) is a strategy that focuses on vial, word of mouth marketing through social bookmarking, social networking, video and blogs (RSS). Content is spread through these channels to increase the visibility, credibility and branding of your company.
Search engine expert Danny Sullivan claims that Rohit Bhargava was the originator of the word “social media optimization.” Bhargava claims there are 5 rules for conducting social media optimization:
1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
I’ll take a moment to elaborate on two of the rules that I believe are the most important. Increasing your linkability (#1) is extremely important because you’re not only growing the number of outlets people have to finding your website or social media sites, you’re also helping to improve the search engine rankings of your website or social media site. Google, and other search engines, value inbound links. The more inbound links that you have the more popular your website is considered; thus, you rank higher.
You also need to make your content travel (#4). In contrast to SEO, SMO is not just about what goes on within your website. Back in the day (10 years ago) simply keyword stuffing your meta tags could help you achieve high search engine rankings. This worked for many people, and it was a sufficient strategy. Fast forward to 2010, search engines have evolved, and they placing more and more value on non website-related files (video, images, audio, pdfs, etc.). Not only should your business be utilizing these newer forms of media, your business should be “blasting this media out” in order to help their content travel. When I say “blast this media out” I mean submitting your videos to You Tube, Vimeo and more. If you have a portfolio on your website then consider submitting your images to Photobucket, Flickr and more. This is not just limited to new media though. Blog articles should also be submitted to social bookmarking and social networking websites.
Social media optimization has proven to be valuable not only as a marketing and brand building tool, but also as a tool for businesses to learn more about their clients, potential clients and employees, in order to improve customer satisfaction, product/service development and recruiting. That being said, social media optimization, like search engine optimization, is about generating leads and increasing revenue. So far, it has done just that.
If you need help implementing an optimized social media strategy, consider contacting Turbo Social Media today to learn more, or call 877-673-7096 x2.
; return false' class='button' title='Print page'><img src='http://cache-02.cleanprint.net/media/pfviewer/images/CleanPrintBtn_black.png){kind=link}
About The Author: Tom Sullivan is the senior account executive at Turbo Social Media. He has managed accounts for a wide variety of businesses, from small “Mom and Pop” businesses to multi-million dollar corporations. His success in business stems from his entrepreneurial drive and his desire to do “whatever it takes” for his clients to be successful.
Tom received his BA in Business Management Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is a former collegiate rugby player and he enjoys playing softball, golfing, camping, and snowboarding in his spare time. 
Related posts: