What SMO Really Is? A Basic Guide for Content Marketers

What Makes Social Media Optimization Essential?

First and foremost, let's get our thoughts clear here. Social Media Optimization (commonly known as SMO) cannot be termed as optimization of social media profiles of an entity. It is also certainly not a procedure of sharing interesting content on social media. And by no stretch of imagination can one term SMO as a marketing strategy build around carefully identified keywords. SMO is much more than that; a totally different ball game, so to speak. So, the question is what exactly social media optimization is? Let’s start!

What is Social Media Optimization (SMO)?

By definition, SMO is a set of procedures or activities online marketers adopt to grow the online presence of the brand or entity they work for. Efforts go into promotion of new products and services, generate more eyeballs when it comes to existing offerings of the company, connect with prospective and existing customers and uphold the reputation of the company in the wake of any unfortunate event or consequence.

So, invariably, the first two points that I have highlighted in the first paragraph are the activities marketers perform to achieve a much bigger objective defined in paragraph two.

If done with correct approach, social media optimization has the potential and the reach to get that much needed traction.

Consider this. More than half of the world's population is on social media with a lot among them quite savvy with all its elements. So, SMO is a great way to engage with some of them, spread the word about your brand or product and eventually increase the ROI for your business.

How SMO helps in SEO?

Ultimate objective of having any digital marketing strategy at place is to rank really high on search engines. However, a lot of businesses around the world don't have the knowhow about the positive signals that optimized social media profiles generate.

When it comes to ranking of websites, search engine algorithms look for indicators like number of followers and level of engagement with customers. Generally, entities having optimized profiles are likely to rank better on search engines.

In addition, if social media profiles are optimized, when users look for a company with its name on search engines, social media links appear just below the company's website.

According to a study by Ascend 2, nearly 50% of companies struggle in their SEO endeavours as their social media profiles are not optimized. So collaboration between SEO and SMO teams is essential to ensure that their approach is targeted and aligned in the right direction, Ultimate objective has to be to achieve that all important first page rank for their website on search engines.

Other Noteworthy Benefits of SMO

Every well-known brand or company harnesses the scope and reach of social media for its benefits. SMO is an integral part of their online marketing strategy. To put it in simple words, a few obvious benefits of SMO are:

• It helps to spread the word about products and services on offer.
• It makes engagement with current and potential customers intuitive and response.
• It helps to drive traffic on websites. This in-turn contributes in generation of leads for the sales team to convert.

With SEO, you try to optimize your site pages so that they get the desired traction on search engines. Similarly, with SMO, you optimize your social media profiles to reach more customers through social media.

SMO: To Conclude

Having said that just like SEO, SMO also requires tweaking and testing. The all so famous cycle of Plan, Do, Check & Act works in SMO as well. Why you need to optimize your profiles? Well, this tutorial answers the question quite precisely. In addition, it also looks at how SMO complements SEO to give a brand or a company that much needed visibility. Subsequent tutorials will provide the tips and techniques you need follow to get your SMO working as per your liking.

Keep reading!