Social Media Optimization (SMO): A New Marketing Phenomenon

Aug
29

Social Media Optimization (SMO): A New Marketing Phenomenon

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a concept defined by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. The concept of SMO makes perfect sense with the emergence (in some cases, domination) of social media sites like myspace, digg, del.icio.us and youtube. Basically, SMO is about implementing changes to a site (or blog) so that others can easily link to it, tag it, post a comment to it; and then submit it to social bookmarking sites. The result is more visibility in the above mentioned websites, more exposure on Technorati, inbound links, an increase in targeted traffic. The key, however, is having valuable content that “engages” others.

Technorati Tags: social media optimization, smo, socialmediaoptimization

Author: Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Vice President of Social Media at Edelman Digital. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or subscribe to this blog.

Gerald Cotley

SMO 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.

Here are some rules on this:

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
6. Get communities connected
Web Designer India

If I am not mistaken, isn't Social Media Optimization a part of SEO itself. After all it is to promote a business or a website, right?
Social Media Marketing

I believe that Social Media Optimization is going to be even bigger then SEO because a good SMO strategy includes branding, which is another word for keyword optimization. I use moguling.com service which combines SEO with SMO.
Michael Brito

SEO Expert - actually SEO and SMO are very similar and CAN be compared to eachother. Here is my reasoning: SEO (on page) and SMO are techniques that marketers have direct control over. It’s about optimizing their web assets to help facilitate the flow of content.

However, I don’t agree that SMO is an added feature of SEO. Yes, they are very similar and SMO does compliment SEO in the form of inbound links; but strategically; they serve to different purposes. SEO is about achieving high search engine rankings. SMO is about helping your content travel across Web 2.0/Social Media channels like Digg, Delicious, etc.

Geez - I am getting sick of these acronyms....
Arun

Please Do not Compare SEO VS SMO

SMO is only ADDED feature of SEO and not more that.

Do not forget one thing when you including other website link for Social bookmark you are promoting outbound link which never be a good idea from SEO point of view. Outbound link can be use only Reciprocal link purpose.

thanks

SEO Expert
http://www.brandmantra.net
Paris Roussos

I think that SMO will become increasingly important, for the following reason. It is likely that relative traffic will drop from the larger older social networking site and begin to spread more evenly. This will make it difficult for individual companies or persons to handle the larger quanity of effort needed to keep up with getting plugged in. SEO will increasingly rely on SMO because SMO will become a strong indicator of authority in algorithms.
Lee Odden

I think brands are exploring slices of social media, but I think there are few who are embracing it as a strategy.

They're testing boundaries and capabilities to see where individual social media channels fit within their existing, and often archaic, online marketing strategies.

In time, big brand marketers will catch up to the more nimble organizations that have been playing with these toys for 12-24 months already. But by that time, there will be something else....
Michael

Lee. It's an honor to have you post on my blog. I have been reading yours for almost 6 months now and have learned allot from you. I do agree with your comment as it mirrors your latest article on Web Pro News.

Another random thought: I assume many organizations will adopt the concept of SMO faster than they did SEO (although some fortune's 500 have yet to adopt an SEO strategy) due to the growth and media attention of of social media sites like Myspace, Digg, Del.icio.us, Wikipedia, etc. I do know first hand that HP is looking how to leverage social media within their overall marketing mix. Any thoughts on this?
Lee Odden

I don't think social media optimization will replace SEO, but augment the free traffic companies want. In fact, new websites can benefit from the traffic from SMO until their SEO efforts mature.