As the shadow of social media looms large over nearly every industry, its power as an advertising tool has not gone unnoticed. Nearly every business knows that it may be important to be on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or YouTube, but sometimes, the push to be part of the pack doesn’t quite pay off. Cue social media optimization (SMO). Like marketing, advertising, and SEO, social media optimization is a service that shows businesses and brands how to make the most of their social media presence, including what to tweet, what circles to join, and how to turn likes, followers, and friends into conversions. Sometimes, your most important content may be 140 characters or less.
SMO works hand in hand with SEO to traffic your content toward the people who are most invested in it. Through Facebook likes, Retweets, and +1s, it becomes possible to aggregate your message to a network of people who are legitimately invested and interested in your service. More importantly, this connected group can share and spread the message to their own network of trusted peers with one click. This is increasingly more important as mobile networks bring social networks into the palms of users through smartphones and tablets, increasing connectivity and accessibility.
While some companies may feel as if they do not need a Facebook profile or a Twitter handle, simple tweets and updates from restaurants to highlight daily specials, or posts from stores to communicate special offers and sales can have a profound effect on increasing awareness, and even cause business to boom. The fact is, SMO can benefit any business, but it’s important to identify the niches of social networking where your business still stays relevant, allowing user experience and content to collaborate organically.
SMO brings the your site back to the forefront of the social experience, primarily by doing two things: making user experience and participation a relevant part of the web experience, encouraging sharing, commenting, and more, but crucially—by linking back to your site. Links are the currency of the web, and nothing quite opens up the exchange faster than social media. From barely visible to totally viral, social networks allow links to generate and spread across the internet in a way that search engines see to be organic, relevant, unique, and new.
This marriage of content and user experience has allowed the social network to become a prime hub for credibility, allowing sites to become more trusted and trafficked with every “Like.”
To better maximize your social presence, or for more information on social media optimization or SEO, contact us here!
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