Social Media Optimization Is a Term Coined to Reflect

and is it something we should be doing?

Social media optimisation or SMO isn't a new term or a new approach, far from information technology. Equally the Wikipedia definition of SMO explains, information technology's been around since 2006 when the search engine marketer Danny Sullivan showtime used it and Rohit Bhargava developed his 5 rules of SMO which are featured at the finish of this post with my suggestions on how to scope SMO activities more broadly.

With many companies now having social media marketing in place, SMO is a logical next stride to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing. So I thought information technology would be interesting to see marketers views on SMO - is it a narrow view about optimising integration with a website, is it mainly related to SEO or is it a broader view?

What do you understand by SMO?

These are the results of the poll - thanks to anybody who voted!

Well the results were very interesting, if very inconclusive! There was a clear winner where respondents said that SMO relates to analysis and improvement across all social media marketing activities (forty%). But non far behind is using Social media to support SEO (31%) - a much narrower scope. I was surprised that integrating social features into a site and encouraging participation from site visitors was rated and so low.

And then what can we take from this? I'm going to take a steer from anybody who voted that there is an interest in the broader improvements to social media marketing of which SEO is just one part. It certainly shows the need to scope the aim and activities of SMO inside your organisation or to advisedly ascertain your agency services.

For reference, the Wikipedia entry draw it as:

"The methodization of social media activeness with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content".

This doesn't assistance much, but scopes it down specifically to boosting spider web visits. Rohit doesn't really elaborate on what information technology is or it's value, instead information technology's scoped by the rules below which suggest information technology is virtually broader client date.

The Fives rules of SMO

If you desire to meliorate SMO I recommend Rohit'south 2010 5 NEW Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO), where he defines these guidelines which I interpret as:

Make sure you follow the v rules of SMO:

i. Create shareable content. This is fundamental to social media marketing, so in SMO it's about determining the content that your audience prefers to share across unlike social media platforms. In Rohit's original post, this activeness was well-nigh encouraging links: the two become together.

2. Brand sharing easy. This is the embedding of buttons and other widgets to encourage sharing, recommending or bookmarking inside your site and blog. SMO analyses the best placements, formats and letters to do this.

3. Reward engagement. Information technology'due south commonplace now to reward "Liking" or "Tweeting" through a promotional or content offer, so this can look at the all-time offers to practice this. Rohit as well says this should look at a longer-term of encouraging deeper date and conversations.

4. Proactively share content This covers the process and format for sharing beyond your fundamental hub. This can include syndicating manufactures to other partners or platforms like Slideshare or Scribd. Some also create their ain widgets for embedding or sharing on other sites (atomization).

five. Encourage the "mashup". Rohit says that this is encouraging folks to have and remix your content, so it becomes user generated content. This action can effectively be built into campaigns.

I think these are really useful for reviewing your approach to integrating social media marketing into a website, only I call up there'southward more to it. So, what's not included in the 5 rules. Well other options which nosotros're looking to test and refine through analytics and AB/multivariate testing on my current project include:

1. Which sharing activities and types of promotions lead to business organization results, leads, sales or changes in brand preference?

2. Determining how social media tin back up SEO activities now we know it's a ranking signal and through encouraging backlinks.

3. Preferences of different audiences using dissimilar social media platforms to share different type of content and offers.

four. Optimum frequency for initiating sharing.

5. Best methods for identifying influencers and seeding content.

6. Approaches to integrate sharing of content through different social platforms, spider web, mobile and email channels.

I'd be interested to hear what you understand by SMO, whether y'all're practicing it and what you accept found?! Or other skillful definitions of SMO and recommended SMO activities you lot're aware of.

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