What is Social Media Optimization?

History of Social Media

Technology changed rapidly and redefined itself with the invention of the first super computer in 1940s. Soon the scientists and engineers all over were trying to throw themselves into technology in order to invent a network between these computers. This led to the onset of internet.

Initial form of internet originated in 1960s, wherein, the earliest emails were also developed. However, until 1970s, the internet had evolved with virtual newsletters.

Social media became more urbane in 1980s when home computers started becoming popular and common. Online chats and IRCs became popularly used in 1988, and continued to be in use until 1990s.

The first foremost social media network, Six Degrees, was launched in 1997. Its key features included, uploading a profile picture, and making friends. First blogging site became popular in 1999. The commotion continues to be popular even today and grows.

Early 2000s witnessed the launch of several refined and more popular social sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc. These sites validated extra features like photo sharing including blogs and online messaging.

2005 witnessed the creation of YouTube that rendered people a new way of communication and media sharing through videos. Further, in 2006, Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook and Twitter was made available simultaneously. The sites still remain two of the most popularly used sites along with Tumblr, Pinterest, Spotify, Instagram, and Foursquare.

Social Media Optimization

Industries, companies, and businesses took their chances to stroll all over the internet with the help of social networks. Every business executive wanted their business expanded and flourished, social network gave them the right platform.

Social media accumulated audiences from across the world and increased the reach of businesses helping them to grow and succeed.

Social media marketing has in fact become a strong marketing strategy for all industries be it education, entertainment, IT, commercial or corporate. Most web design and development agencies offer social media optimization (SMO) as their service.

As a process of increasing the awareness, promotions, and visibility among online users, SMO is an essential part of all online and offline businesses. This is done through several social media channels and communities to publicize and brandish the service/products.

Some of the SMO methods include,

1. RSS feeds
2. Bookmarking
3. Vlogs
4. Blogging
5. Media sharing

Dos and Don’ts of SMO

SMO aims at driving as much traffic to the website as possible through link building. With search engine optimization alongside it, SMO aka search marketing optimization becomes a very powerful tool in increasing a business’s visibility and encourages its online existence.

However, it is essential that right practices are executed in the right way through right channels. However tough it might sound to do, it isn’t once all basics, goals, and purpose is understood.

The first and foremost purpose of SMO is to drive in traffic. This is done through increasing visibility, making people to know about it, and interacting with the audience. Certain methods of performing social media marketing are discussed above, and below are enlisted some key discussions on how to make use of those methods.

• Create content that is shareable
• Use multimedia
• Make the sharing of the content easy
• Share other’s content
• Use visuals to make it attention-grabbing
• Be creative and original
• Be authentic with the content
• Know the audience and schedule the posts strategically
• Be factual and resourceful
• Boost user-generated content

Preceding ten points will help determine what approaches for social media channeling will sprout out the best results. Following are some points that will define the points more clearly by defining what not to do.

• Don’t post irrelevant content
• Do not bombard your audience with excessive postings
• Don’t forget to proof-read for grammatical and spelling mistakes
• Do not ignore your audience by not reverting back to their queries and complaints
• Do not avoid interaction with audience

Once the agendas, methods, and proper execution of SMO are clear and well defined, it will be easy to achieve all the benefits of the marketing strategy.

Benefits of SMO

There are several reasons why SMO is important to all businesses. The first and foremost benefit, as discussed above, is that the visibility of the business increases multi fold. Facebook alone inhabits more than 3 billion users, which makes it a very significant platform for all business promotions and advertising. The proportion of internet users that are active on different social media channels is a huge number. Social media also reaches out to people against regional and lingual boundaries.

Consequently, improved numbers of people visit the website, which increases the traffic. If the SMO is performed and executed in an effective way, huge traffic can be expected as a result. Unlike the traffic generated from email marketing, the SMO traffic is more relevant since most visitors are those who volunteered to visit rather than being convinced to make the visit to the website.

SMO is also an effective two-way communication platform where the company can directly interact with its audience and vice versa. This humanizes the company and builds trust among its audience. It also increases credibility when a customer is quickly responded through a direct message on any social media.

Many social media channels like blogging sites offer free-of-cost advertising.

Others provide a paid option wherein the social network agrees to advertise and promote the company in exchange of a reasonable and cost-effective amount of money. This paid option is offered by all big social networks like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

SMO brings in quick popularity along with close relationship with customers.

Where can one find this service?

If an investor is willing, he/she can approach a decent web design and development company in order to use their SEO services, which will comprise of search engine optimization as well as social media marketing. With increasing global competition, the prices at which these services are offered are quite competitive and quality is sophisticated.