Introduction to Social Media Optimization

Posted by JohnCarcutt
September 21, 2006

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I am in the middle of a site redesign and social marketing will be a big part of the changes. I have been dealing quite a bit with how best to implement these changes and thought I would do a quick summary of some of the things I am focusing on.

It’s not like we need another acronym in this business, but here it is; SMO or Social Media Optimization. It’s uncomfortably similar to SEO, but that is where the likeness ends (almost). Basically, SMO is a name applied to utilizing all the different forms of social internet content which have boomed in the past couple of years. When you created those “Digg-It” links or added that Flick’r content to your site you already started your foray into SMO. Wikipedia describes SMO as:

… a way to optimize websites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites. For example allowing RSS feeds, easier linking, incorporation of third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos …

At this point optimizing for SMO has three main activities. First is the implementation of SMO features on your website, second is creating social friendly content and finally is the off site follow-thru.

Most of you have probably already started implementing social marketing features on your websites. If you have added tagging, or links to ad your articles or pages to social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or digg you have begun. Even those RSS feeds you have been publishing come into play. Podcasts, YouTube feeds, and that Flick’r gallery can all be part of your SMO plan. If you can, advanced SMO plans also contain a number of items related to the creation of user generated content. Depending on your sites format, think about items like user blogs, on page commentary or tagging and even uploaded content in a variety of forms (pics, mp3s or vids).

When we talk about optimizing these features, as SEO’s or SEM’s we need to step out of our normal mode of operation and think about optimizing more for users than for search engines. These features are more about user interaction than search spiders. Think about usability and place these features in logic places. For example, it is probably not the best idea to place a “Digg-it” link next to the snippet of an article on your home page. People are much more likely to add the site to Digg after they have read the entire article not just the snippet. It would probably be more beneficial for you to place the link at the top and bottom of the entire article so they can link it while it is fresh in their mind. Thinking about how people will use your social features is the best way to start on page optimization for social marketing.

Once these features are in place on your site, you need to motivate your visitors to use them. This is where your content comes in. At this point you need to think about unique content that is linkable and likely to generate interest in your field. The more interesting your content, the more likely people will use your social features to share it with others or to keep tabs on it for future reference. Here’s a similarity between SEO and SMO, your “Title” is the most important element on the page. In SEO the title tag seems to have more weight than other text on your pages and is displayed in search results. In SMO, the title of a document of page is the primary exposure on those third party sites which users have added you to. Having an attention grabbing title is VERY important in getting more people to save or tag your pages on social sites. This is commonly referred to these days as “linkbait”.

Ok, you have the features installed and you are writing great content, that’s all you need to do right? Wrong. You could stop there and let social marketing take its natural course, but you would be leaving opportunities on the table and not make the most of your social marketing efforts. A good SMO plan contains follow up. Each of the sites your users are submitting you to are by nature social sites. If you become part of the community yourself and interact with its members, your reputation will start to generate more trust in links to your site and more people will looking for information from you to tag or add. You interaction in the community will differ depending on the oppions available at the specific community, but one rule is global. Do not over self promote. As a member of the community, do you best to be a valuable member of the community and the rewards to your own site will come.

If you can master these three sections of SMO you will no doubt see how profitable social marketing can be. … and the once you taste the advantage over your competition you see how del.icio.us it really is.

Related Reading on Social Media Optimization: