Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a process that involves social media activity (interaction, discussion and sharing) with the intent to generate and attract the unique visitors to a website content when any search related query is performed. The second other only online method of optimization being Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in which the goal is to boost traffic and awareness for a website.

SMO can be applied to RSS feeds, Bookmarking websites, Photo and video sharing and as well as social networking sites such as Facebook, Twiter and various blogging sites. In other words SMO is optimizing a website and its content in terms of sharing across social media and networking sites. In many ways SMO is connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through family and friends but through the use of networking websites. In a similar manner blogs achieve the same by sharing the content through the use of RSS feeds.

While social media optimization is related to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) they differ in several ways. SMO focuses on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful social media optimization. Now days more people are able to cast their vote on what’s relevant by linking to it, bookmarking it and also tweeting it, thanks to blogging and social media platforms. There are two categories of SMO methods:

(a) Social media features added to the content itself, including: RSS feeds, social news and sharing buttons, user rating and polling tools, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos.

(b) Promotional activities in social media aside from the content being promoted, including: blogging, commenting on other blogs, participating in discussion groups, and posting status updates on social networking profiles.

In today’s scenarios SMO is becoming extremely important for SEO as search engines are increasingly utilizing the recommendations of user of social networks like Google+, Facebook and Twitter to rank pages in the search engine result pages. When a webpage is shared or liked by a user on a social network, it counts as a vote for that webpage’s quality. Thus search engines use such votes to properly rank website in the search engine result pages.

If you want Birbals to help you with Social Media Optimization, Please contact us at 510.449.9049