Social Media Optimization (SMO) Explained in Simple Way

Webmasters spends many hours working hard and learning SEO tips to make their website or blog rank high in search engines. Social media optimization (SMO) is equally important as SEO. The term “social media optimization” was first used and described by Rohit Bhargava. In simple terms, Social media optimization (SMO) uses social media, online communities, forums to generate publicity to your blog. SMO includes adding RSS feeds, social news buttons (Digg, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz, Stumbleupon, Technorati, etc), blogging, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos in such a way so that your blog is highly visible in social media searches like Technorati. 

Rohit Bhargava initially defined a set of five rules for conducting social media optimization effectively. Later some more rules were added by Jeremiah Owyang, Cameron Olthuis, Loren Baker and Lee Odden. These rules have been translated to other languages like French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, et cetera. For details click here.

Below is the list of 16 Rules of ‘Social Media Optimization’.

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
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 content
11. Be real
12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble
13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
14. Develop a SMO strategy
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

Below I a beautiful presentation on SMO which will guide you about Social Media Optimization using a fictitious Medical Device company case study. It will explain how SMO helps in promoting your product.

Tagged as: SEO, SMO