Social Media Optimization

Social Media is hitting the online marketing space faster than a speeding RSS feed. The concept continues to evolve, and more and more internet marketers are looking for the next major way to fully leverage Social Media strategies for clients, products and services.

SMO has the ability to attract and engage customers and web traffic in a way that organic search results and 'Sponsored Listings' on a search engine never will. The emerging field will grow with the same speed that social media itself has grown, as new tools and practices are shaped into coherent SMO tactics. If you use social media tools like a blog, Squidoo or HubPages for marketing purposes, then your focus should be on attracting potential customers or clients to visit your site in order to participate in relevant conversations about your products or services. SMO is about increasing the volume and richness of those interactions.

13 Golden Rules of SMO

1. Increase your linkability: Think blogs, content, aggregation & linkbait.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy: Include calls to action for users to tag, bookmark and Digg your stuff. I'd suggest the Sociable Plugin if you have a Wordpress powered blog.

3. Reward inbound links: List blogs which link back to you via permalinks, trackbacks or recently linking blogs (like the Yahoo & Google blogs do).

4. Help your content travel: Content diversification can lead to mobility of your content beyond the browser.

5. Encourage the mashup: Let others use your content or tools to produce something a bit different or outside of the box with your stuff, even RSS.

6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn't help you: Add value and outbound links, even if it doesn't help in the short term, it will in the long.

7. Reward helpful and valuable users: Give your contributors and readers the recognition they deserve.

8. Participate: Get in there and get involved in the discussions going on among the blogs and sites of others, and do it organically. Earn your rep on Digg.com, don't try and force it.

9. Know how to target your audience: Understand your appeal and those people you wish to attract.

10. Create content: A little bit of rules 1 & 4 here, but the underlying message is know the form of content working for you.

11. Be real: Transparency pays off and no one likes a fake.

12. Don't forget your roots, be humble: Sometimes it can be easy to get carried away being a BlogStar or industry talking head. Remember those who helped you along the way, and that respect will help all involved.

13. Don't be afraid to try new things, stay fresh: Social Media is changing and morphing by the minute, keep up on new tools, products and challenges in your social sphere.

Adapted from, Squidoo