Social media optimization


Social media optimization is the use of online platforms to generate income or publicity to increase the awareness of a brand, event, product or service. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, blogging sites, social bookmarking sites, social news websites, video sharing websites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X. SMO is similar to search engine optimization in that the goal is to drive web traffic, and draw attention to a company or creator. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites.
SMO is used to strategically create online content ranging from well-written text to eye-catching digital photos or video clips that encourages and entices people to engage with a website. Users share this content, via its weblink, with social media contacts and friends. Common examples of social media engagement are "liking and commenting on posts, retweeting, embedding, sharing, and promoting content". Social media optimization is also an effective way of implementing online reputation management, meaning that if someone posts bad reviews of a business, an SMO strategy can ensure that the negative feedback is not the first link to come up in a list of search engine results.
In the 2010s, with social media sites overtaking TV as a source for news for young people, news organizations have become increasingly reliant on social media platforms for generating web traffic. Publishers such as The Economist employ large social media teams to optimize their online posts and maximize traffic, while other major publishers now use advanced artificial intelligence technology to generate higher volumes of web traffic.

Relationship with search engine optimization

Social media optimization is an increasingly important factor in search engine optimization, which is the process of designing a website in a way so that it has as high a ranking as possible on search engines. Search engines are increasingly utilizing the recommendations of users of social networks such as Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram to rank pages in the search engine result pages. The implication is that 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 can use such votes accordingly to properly ranked websites in search engine results pages. Furthermore, since it is more difficult to tip the scales or influence the search engines in this way, search engines are putting more stock into social search. This, coupled with increasingly personalized search based on interests and location, has significantly increased the importance of a social media presence in search engine optimization. Due to personalized search results, location-based social media presences on websites such as Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, and Yahoo! Local have become increasingly important. While social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, it differs in several ways. Primarily, SMO focuses on driving web traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search engine ranking is also a benefit of successful social media optimization. Further, SMO is helpful to target particular geographic regions in order to target and reach potential customers. This helps in lead generation and contributes to high conversion rates.

Relationship with viral marketing

Social media optimization is in many ways connected to the technique of viral marketing or "viral seeding" where word of mouth is created through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. An effective SMO campaign can harness the power of viral marketing; for example, 80% of activity on Pinterest is generated through "repinning." Furthermore, by following social trends and utilizing alternative social networks, websites can retain existing followers while also attracting new ones. This allows businesses to build an online following and presence, all linking back to the company's website for increased traffic. For example, with an effective social bookmarking campaign, not only can website traffic be increased, but a site's rankings can also be increased. In a similar way, the engagement with blogs creates a similar result by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogosphere. Social media optimization is considered an integral part of an online reputation management or search engine reputation management strategy for organizations or individuals who care about their online presence. SMO is one of six key influencers that affect Social Commerce Construct. Online activities such as consumers' evaluations and advices on products and services constitute part of what creates a Social Commerce Construct.
Social media optimization is not limited to marketing and brand building. Increasingly, smart businesses are integrating social media participation as part of their knowledge management strategy. Additionally, social media optimization can be implemented to foster a community of the associated site, allowing for a healthy business-to-consumer relationship.

Origins and implementation

According to technologist Danny Sullivan, the term "social media optimization" was first used and described by marketer Rohit Bhargava on his marketing blog in August 2006. In the same post, Bhargava established the five important rules of social media optimization. Bhargava believed that by following his rules, anyone could influence the levels of traffic and engagement on their site, increase popularity, and ensure that it ranks highly in search engine results. An additional 11 SMO rules have since been added to the list by other marketing contributors.
The 16 rules of SMO, according to one source, are as follows:
  1. Increase your linkability
  2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
  3. Reward inbound links
  4. Help your content to "travel" via sharing
  5. Encourage the mashup, where users are allowed to remix content
  6. Be a user resource, even if it doesn't help you
  7. Reward helpful and valuable users
  8. Participate
  9. Know how to target your audience
  10. Create new, quality content
  11. Be "real" in the tone and style of the posts
  12. Don't forget your roots; be humble
  13. Don't be afraid to experiment, innovate, try new things and "stay fresh"
  14. Develop an SMO strategy
  15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely
  16. Make SMO a key part of your marketing process and develop company best practices
Bhargava's initial five rules were more specifically designed to SMO, while the list is now much broader and addresses everything that can be done across different social media platforms. According to author and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, Lee Odden, a Social Media Strategy is also necessary to ensure optimization. This is a similar concept to Bhargava's list of rules for SMO.
The Social Media Strategy may consider:
  1. Objectives e.g. creating brand awareness and using social media for external communications.
  2. Listening e.g. monitoring conversations relating to customers and business objectives.
  3. Audience e.g. finding out who the customers are, what they do, who they are influenced by, and what they frequently talk about. It is important to work out what customers want in exchange for their online engagement and attention.
  4. Participation and content e.g. establishing a presence and community online and engaging with users by sharing useful and interesting information.
  5. Measurement e.g. keeping a record of likes and comments on posts, and the number of sales to monitor growth and determine which tactics are most useful in optimizing social media.
According to Lon Safko and David K. Brake in The Social Media Bible, it is also important to act like a publisher by maintaining an effective organizational strategy, to have an original concept and unique "edge" that differentiates one's approach from competitors, and to experiment with new ideas if things do not work the first time. If a business is blog-based, an effective method of SMO is using widgets that allow users to share content to their personal social media platforms. This will ultimately reach a wider target audience and drive more traffic to the original post. Blog widgets and plug-ins for post-sharing are most commonly linked to Facebook, LinkedIn and x.com. They occasionally also link to social media platforms such as Tumblr and Pinterest. Many sharing widgets also include user counters which indicate how many times the content has been liked and shared across different social media pages. This can influence whether or not new users will engage with the post, and also gives businesses an idea of what kind of posts are most successful at engaging audiences. By using relevant and trending keywords in titles and throughout blog posts, a business can also increase search engine optimization and the chances of their content of being read and shared by a large audience. The root of effective SMO is the content that is being posted, so professional content creation tools can be very beneficial. These can include editing programs such as Photoshop, GIMP, Final Cut Pro, and Dreamweaver. Many websites also offer customization options such as different layouts to personalize a page and create a point of difference.

Publishing industry

With social media sites overtaking TV as a source for news for young people, news organizations have become increasingly reliant on social media platforms for generating traffic. A report by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism described how a 'second wave of disruption' had hit news organizations, with publishers such as The Economist having to employ large social media teams to optimize their posts, and maximize traffic. Within the context of the publishing industry, even professional fields are utilizing SMO. Because doctors want to maximize exposure to their research findings SMO has also found a place in the medical field.
Today, 3.8 billion people globally are using some form of social media. People frequently obtain health-related information from online social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Healthcare professionals and scientists can communicate with other medical-counterparts to discuss research and findings through social media platforms. These platforms provide researchers with data sets and surveillance that help detect patterns and behavior in preventing, informing, and studying global disease; COVID-19. Additionally, researchers utilize SMO to reach and recruit hard-to-reach patients. SMO narrows specified demographics that filter necessary data in a given study.