What is SMO?
Social media optimization is mentioned as a method which enhances the website awareness or brand of the products, by making use of social media communities and outlets so that viral promotional is made.
Social media optimization makes use of social media sites, RSS feeds, bookmarking sites, videos, social news, and blogging sites.
SMO is said to be similar to SEO, but its main intention is to drive traffic to the website.
Role of SMO:
Social media optimization acts as a major element in the website’s achievement.
When present scenarios are considered, social signals are ones which affect social media marketing, SEO of any blog, and blog’s optimization and are considered important.
When you take into account an E-commerce website, SMO has become the main aspect because social recommendations are utilized by people to purchase online products.
To create a brand of your own on social media, SMO is necessary.
SMO is a technique followed for the promotion of any product. They build a brand on many social channels.
The top social channels are Twitter, Facebook, video sources such as YouTube, social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, Stumble Upon and lots more.
SMO and Its Regulations:
Social media optimization was utilized for grabbing traffic from social media sites.
It was in 2006 that social media optimization was first used by Rohit Bhargava in an article called 5 rules of social media optimization.
The main focus was to drive in traffic to websites from social sites. This is the main intention of SMO and is similar to search engine optimization where it tries to engender responsiveness and traffic for the website.
In simple words, social media optimization optimizes the contents as well as the website by sharing across networking and social media sites.
Social media optimization can be improved by following the below steps.
1. Reputation:
For reputation, you should take steps for complete research and produce quality contents.
Original contents are ones which makes you a qualified and respected source. The way you assist and engage people would also fall under the reputation category.
When you share your expertise and content in an open manner and associate with others by means of commenting and discussion, though it’s not your content your reputation would be elevated.
You should also be helpful and friendly to people.
2. Engagement:
This is an important element where you need to engage with your audience in an active manner. This can be done by means of sharing, commenting, likes, mentions, and plus ones.
It is true that none is smart as others hence sharing contents of other people can offer you a good user experience when proper feedbacks and comments are provided.
The network which you desire to interact should be focused and made easier so that people also interact.
Audiences in your site may find it easier to interact but the number of audiences to interact would be present in other communities such as LinkedIn and Google+ communities.
These can be synced by making use of Google+ comments on your blog.
Users would be discouraged from commenting when they are requested to create the account in your site.
Call to action can also be another technique which is used to engage people. An example can be “if the article is beneficial to share. If something is missed do write comments” and so on.
3. Authority:
When authority is considered, there are many aspects.
The main intention of the search engine is to determine authoritative brands and individuals who are trusted by people.
Google Authorship is the best example which can be mentioned in this scenario.
When Google Authorship is set up, it can assist you to present yourself as an expert and present your profile in a popular way during search results.
In the same manner, social proof is another way to elevate the contents value and authority.
The usefulness and value of content are indicated the more when your content is shared through re-tweets, plus ones, bookmarks and likes. By this way, the content is read by other people.
4. Leadership:
Leadership can be mentioned as original content preparation, thinking, and quality research.
The main chore of the leader is to research all aspects about their niche and share meaningful insights which are valuable to the audience.
Poor quality contents would not be shared. With the help of content curation, a value can be added to the audience by the leader.
This is where content is enhanced with value by adding context, perspective or providing the summary to the sharing content.
5. Social:
There is definitely a need to develop enhanced quality networks as quality is more important than quantity.
Look for expert help in your niche, glimpse through their words and also share your thoughts.
6. Media platforms:
Appropriate communities and platforms are necessary aspects to be focused upon. Monitor the community and platform where your audiences are found the most.
There are few effective platforms which heighten the benefits of SMO. A good suggestion of effective platform would be Google+.
7. Optimization:
In order to optimize your SMO, the following are suggested to be added.
Share buttons:
This assists the users to share the content in an easy manner. Also, the share number should be present for social proof.
Social icons:
Represent your social icon in your site in a familiar place.
Options for subscription:
Never forget to include subscription options such as RSS, email and newsletter.
Shareable content:
Scannable and short contents are easily shareable which is required. Also perfect and well-written contents would be shareable.
Social login:
Do not forget to make use of social login, so that users can post their comments.
Rich Snippets:
Snippets are mandatory as social networks absorb rich snippets. This is because they prove beneficial for users.
Data is absorbed by varied social networks in varied ways. For example, Twitter makes use of Twitter cards, Facebook makes use of Open card, the values in open graph is taken by Google Plus.
Your main chore is to set up authorship profile which is the rel=” author” tag in a correct manner.
Also, the Yoast plugin can be utilized for optimizing and managing rich snippets in WordPress.
Title tags:
Title tags are mandatory to be optimized for sharing purpose mainly on the social network like Twitter where there is a limit in character.
Images:
Images are ones which portray more than text. It is good to add image and add value for the same.
Also, include an image which can be utilized as a thumbnail in the content.
SMO in Business:
Being a mandatory part of internet marketing, SMO assists business reach heights.
They help business being promoted in social media sites and there are varied advantages by making use of SMO as mentioned below.
1. Traffic:
SMO is the main source for traffic apart from email marketing and search engines.
When this practice is done in the right manner, then abundant traffic would reach your site.
2. Communication channel:
The present scenario is that customers are provided with a business channel such as Facebook by their company.
This assists the customers to possess a good connection and reach customers in an easy manner.
3. Website visibility:
Website visibility is increased by means of SMO.
This is because many groups of people use forums, social networking websites, and online communities.
4. Ease of target:
With SMO services, advertising to a limited audience with online communities and social media platforms as possible.
In case your business is a global one, a worldwide audience can be reached with SMO services easily.
5. Free ads:
One of the best sources for advertising is through Social media platforms.
6. Customer satisfaction:
When any customer contacts through social media network and is replied instantly, this means that customer satisfaction rank is enhanced and the credibility rate is also enhanced.
7. Quick updates sharing:
When there is a new press release, the fresh launch of a product or any important news for the customers, then the best source in the form of Twitter, Facebook is none other than SMO.
8. Paid routes:
In order to reach a focused audience, there are paid options too.
Users can also make use of free options like forum posting, blogging etc.
Some of the paid options are Twitter Ads, StumbleUpon Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads and more. All these paid options are proved to be cost effective.
9. Relationship with customers:
Your customer’s requirement can be understood when an update is made on social media platforms and when customers share their views.
By this way, strong relationship and trust are developed along with the opportunity for betterment.
10. Instant familiarity:
For quick popularity SMO services or media, an advertisement is required. Instant popularity is gained with SMO services.
SMO Aim and methods:
The main objective of SMO is to develop fascinating contents online which can be well-developed text, video clips, eye-catching digital photos and more which lures in people to link to the website.
Audiences then share the content through web links with their friends and social media contacts.
Social media optimization or SMO is actually a subset of search engine optimization or SEO. There are actually two methods in SMO.
The addition of social media features to the content which include social news, RSS feeds, sharing buttons, social news, and also embedding third-party community functionalities which include videos, image.
The other is promotional activities in social media part from the promotion of content which includes taking part in the discussion group, blogging, posting status, commenting on other blog’s social media profiles.
Rules for SMO:
To influence the engagement and traffic for any site and also to enhance popularity, the following rules are to be followed. The rules are as follows.
- Enhancing linkability
- Easy achievement of bookmarking and tagging
- Inbound links to be rewarded.
- Making your content to travel by means of sharing
- Mashup to be encouraged so that users are able to remix
- Always be a resource for users
- Valuable and helpful users are to be helped
- Take part in the online conversation
- Understand methods to target your audience
- Quality and fresh contents are to be developed
- The posts style and trend should be real
- It is required to be humble and not to forget your source
- Be brave to experiment, be fresh, innovate and try new aspects.
- SMO strategy is to be developed
- SMO tactics are to have opted wisely
- The marketing process should hold SMO as the main part and also develop best practices of the company.
These are broader rules and also address all aspects which can be performed amongst social media platforms.
SMO’s Power Marketing:
Social media optimization has a deep link with viral marketing also known as viral seeding. Here information is used in social media networking, photo sharing websites and videos. An operative SMO campaign can reach the power of viral marketing.
A simple example can be Pinterest where most of the activity here is generated by means of repining. Social networks and social trends these days can assist in retaining followers and luring in new ones.
Social media optimization hence is considered as a great way to elevate your business to higher trends. This way you have joined hands with state of the art techniques for profitable business.
Driving traffic has been the main objective of SMO which is beneficial for business. They have also been an efficient and cheap way for information sharing.
Final Words:
The above-mentioned information provides a detailed view of SMO, its objectives and rules.
Fresh business owners can glimpse through and follow the same for greater profit returns. There are ample sites which discuss the real-time scenarios of SMO and the ways it is beneficial in many ways.
Fresher’s who desire to bloom in business can follow SMO techniques for best results. SMO would hence be useful and profitable.