Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Are you feeling left behind in the Social Media Age?  Don't be! 

 You may have heard that you should establish a Social Media Optimization (SMO)* strategy.   But what you may not be hearing is why?  I know that what I'm not hearing is that an effective SMO strategy should be all about increasing your website visitor traffic.  Why else would we invest all of that time, energy and money?  Right?

As you may already know, Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a set of strategies for generating publicity and incoming website visitor traffic by using social media, online communities and social networking websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, social news buttons, blogging, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos into your website or for driving traffic to your website.  SMO is related to Search Engine Marketing (SEM), but differs in several ways, primarily because the focus is on creating website visitor traffic from sources other than search engines.   Improved Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings and higher Google Page Rank should also be benefits of a successful SMO strategy.

Additionally, Social Media Optimization is sometimes related to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through a presence on social media, social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.  In a similar way posting blogs achieves the same effect by sharing content through the use of RSS Feeds in the blogosphere and special blog search engines. 

So, focusing on generating more website visitors is why I have created this triangle diagram for my Internet Marketing Clients to simply explain an SMO strategy and show the interrelated aspects of SEO, Blogging and Social Networking and the resulting benefit equaling more website traffic.

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Creating a clear focus on drving more visitor traffic to your website is why I have set-up SMO campaigns on my own websites.  I work with my Clients to plan their SMO strategies to integrate with their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and SEM campaigns.  Then we execute the SMO plan by establishing social media accounts, blogging, adding RSS feeds, pursuing ethical link building, social bookmarking and launching viral marketing strategies.  Finally, we evaluate our SMO results monthly to monitor the return on investment (ROI) and to identify areas of improvement.

Please share your thoughts or questions on using SMO strategies to drive more traffic to your website by leaving a comment here or by sending a private email. 

Dave Westfall is a Social Media Mentor, Web Business Consultant, Speaker and Trainer who provides solid advice and proven solutions that work.  For more information or to follow or connect please visit Dave online . 

All the best,

Dave Westfall, MBA
Your Social Media Mentor
email:  info@dewpointe.com
phone: 303-398-3998

* According to Wikipedia, Rohit Bhargava was credited with inventing the term SMO.  His original rules for conducting Social Media Optimization are:

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
6. Get communities connected