Social Media Optimization (SMO): A New Marketing Phenomenon
Aug 29, 2006 Michael BritoSocial 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
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September 2nd, 2006 at 1:43 am
Hey..I also read the post from Rohit. I am wondering if this new strategy will ultimately replace SEO? Any thoughts on this?
September 15th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
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.
September 15th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
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?
September 20th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
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....
October 18th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
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.
December 27th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
[...] Social Media Optimization is the practice of 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 like Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon; with the chance of your content becoming viral . The result is more visibility in the above mentioned sites; more exposure on Technorati, inbound links, and an increase in targeted traffic. [...]
January 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
[...] Social Media Optimization is one element of being omnipresent on the Internet, or as Rohit Bhargava states “helping your content travel“. It could be compared to that of a manufacturer who adopts a comprehensive channel marketing strategy to distribute their product. For example, if I am looking o purchase a Sony laptop, I can easily get on online at Sonystyle.com (if I am comfortable making online purchases), or take a drive to the local Best Buy, Circuit City or even Sony store and buy it there too. From a consumer’s point of view, they can get a Sony laptop wherever they feel comfortable buying it. In essence, Sony laptops are omnipresent, even though they are not very good. [...]
March 20th, 2007 at 9:41 am
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
March 20th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
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....
March 29th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
[...] I am not going to get into the definition of social media optimization because, quite frankly, I am tired of talking about it. I have been spreading the gospel of SMO for months now across my organization. However, if you have a blog or at least a web page with killer content on it, I hope you are utilizing social bookmarks. Why? Because social bookmarking will help your web content travel across the internet in an effort to achieve true “omnipresence”. Paul does an excellent job in his SEO Blog emphasizing the importance of using bookmarks on your blogs/web pages and even points you to some cool tools you can use in an effort to do so. [...]
May 11th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
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.