Social Media Optimization (SMO) Just What We Needed Another Abreviation

It was once called keyword research. You needed to use keywords in your content and metatags to get the search engines to rank you for those words.

Then it became SEO, Search Engine Optimizaqtion, and included link building and other things as part of the strategy to get more traffic to your website. This was before Google was a portal. Good original content and link popularity were always important before Matt Cutts had a blog and before you could perform searches through Google.

Then along came SEM, Search Engine Marketing. This is the part of your Internet marketing plan that is geared completely toward search engine traffic and includes PPC.

Now with the popularity of social networking, comes SMO, Social Media Optimization. Not like we needed to confuse the average user anymore than we already have.

Social Media Optimization
Most Internet users have heard of Search Engine Marketing (SEO) but the new “buzz word” in the Internet Marketing world is Social Media Optimization (SMO). SMO tactics are used to drive large amounts of people to a web site through new channels. Google and Yahoo, while still major players, are not the only sites that push traffic anymore. The basis of Social Media Optimization lies in creating a community that brings interested users together. Wikipedia describes social media as… “The online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs.”

The old version of online marketing and the new have one very important rule in common: content is king. Writing a blog (online web log) that does little more than advertise your services or products will not create a community. Writing a blog that shares your expertise, opinions, latest industry news, and your insights has the potential to bring in interested visitors and gives them a reason to come back. Linking your blog to sites like Digg (digg.com), del.icio.us (del.icio.us.com), and Facebook (facebook.com) will spread your message across the Internet faster than any search engine. This is the Internet’s version of “word of mouth” marketing. People will have the opportunity to read your posts, visit your site and learn more about you and your business.

Those are some great tips, but the writer only includes a small number of the social websites you need to use to do proper SMO. There. I used it. SMO. Getting used to it I guess. He didn’t mention StumbleUpon which brings in a ton of traffic and didn’t mention propeller.com that can help you get great search engine ranklings for your bookmarks. He didn’t mention reddit.com.

Well let’s just say don’t limit yourself to only the three mentioned in the post or the ones I added. Search google for a list of social networking or social bookmarking sites and you’ll find all you need.

CENTER>The Rest of The Blog Post on SMO is here