Social Media Optimization (SMO)
Rohit Bhargava was credited with inventing the term Social Media Optimization (SMO). SMO aims to make use of the online communities to drive in traffic to your site. Communities such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumble Upon, Bebo, Technorati, Del.icio.us, You Tube, Flickr, Linked In and Ning are popular on the social media circuits. It's is all about viral marketing - writing relevant & informative blogs, posting/publishing photos or videos and much more that appeal to community members who then recommend your blog/site to other community members.
Thanks to the 'Web 2.0 Revolution' most websites these days tend to form an online community, where by users can share, collaborate, search and generate content within and outside their (online) community. Personally I am not a big fan of the phrase 'Web 2.0' & 'User Generated Content'. I think its been over used. The concept of online collaboration and user generated content existed since the early days of web - though on a small scale.
Search Engine results are generated by complicated algorithms. While Social Media results are usually obtained through human (community members) recommendation.
As stated by Rohit Bhargava the key driving factors for Social Media are:
1) Search (user generated search result)
2) Discover (exploring sites/information of relevant interest)
3) Connect (connecting to the online community, members with similar interest)
4) Publish (publishing their content, today any one can publish their thoughts through blog, vblog.& so on)
5)Share (Sharing their blogs, photos, vidoes & so)Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, text messages (Twitter), images and vlogs (Video Blog). Even your Instant Messenger is part of social media (though a very small community).
As I have maintained somehow all your marketing efforts are interconnected. Consider SMO - more traffic could lead to more inbound links and which will help your SEO efforts.
So how does one pursue SMO?
Unlike SEO - there are no fixed rules, there are no codes to be altered in your website, no redesigning of your website (if your site is user friendly).The key to SMO is having the
a) Right content on your site (Yes Content! By now you know how important it is for Online Marketing efforts) which would appeal to your site visitors, allow user to generate their own content, bring more interactivity within your blog/site, add photos, humorous videos and what not and then promote your site to various/ specific communities. Make sure you are genuine, unlike SEO in SMO community members could promptly vote you off.b) For Right Online Communities - With so many Online Communities aimed at different demographic and in different languages you have to choose which communities you'd like to serve.
When determining which site/s are right for you, you need to consider the type of site you're trying to market. If you're a technology company, then submitting posts to Digg may be beneficial for you. However, don't assume Digg is automatically a match simply because it's the only social media site you've heard of. There are plenty of similar sites, see where your core demographic is more active and the target those sites. Have a look at Reditt, Mixx. Yahoo Buzz.
Without knowing your audience there's no way you can offer them a great tool or a compelling piece of content. You need to consider what actions will produce the strongest reaction and use the least amount of resources. Take into account what your desired outcome is. Are you looking for increased conversions, traffic, links, industry credibility, brand recognition, something else? All of this will be vital in helping you plan your attack.
Once you know your goals you can start deciding which sites are best geared towards helping you meet them.