Social media optimization (SMO)

Social media optimization (SMO) is the systematization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. Search Media Optimization is one among the two online methods of website optimization, the other method being search engine optimization or SEO. SMO can otherwise be termed as the process of trying to get already established content distributed more widely across many social media platforms.

SMO can be categorized into 2 methods:

I. Adding content to the social media features, including RSS feeds, social news and sharing buttons, user rating and polling tools, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos.

II. Apart from the content promotion, activities like blogging, posting comments on other blogs, participating in discussion forums, and posting status updates on social networking profiles.

Although social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, it differs in several ways, the primary one being the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

SMO has gained much prominence over the past few years and has been implemented by companies who care about their online presence.