Since people are into social media as well as they are into search engine to seek information, Social Media Optimization (SMO) should be part of an overall SEO strategy for businesses.
As a brand, publisher, designer, artist, or filmmaker, the social web is one of the youngest distribution channel as well as a place to put portfolio for intellectual assets. Whether a business or a company is about creating, marketing, selling, or distributing media, the social web is an medium that can create a brand, build demand and establish visibility without doing any active promotion. The internet is about letting the expertise work itself through the practice of a socialized form of inbound marketing that makes a product and/or service discoverable when people search.
We know that people use search engines, notably Google, Yahoo! and Bing, to find relevant content, and if we talk about SEO, we talk about content to be discovered in search engine result pages (SERPs).
However, the technicalities involved with wiring SEO are not the same processes required to boost visibility in social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.. Since it's in social networks like these where people are increasingly spending time communicating, finding relevant and interesting content, and sharing it. So in addition to SEO, implementing and managing SMO is a step forward to increase visibility in these environments.
Social Media, a Place to Gather
Everyday people are taking to social media to discover new content in and around their social environment. Social media sites account for 20 percent of where searches begin, outperforming sites that are dedicated to publishing information specifically to help individuals find deeper analysis and details. Social media is becoming a main research channel.
SMO is defined by the distribution of social objects and their ability to rise to the top of any related search query, where and when its performed.
At the center of any successful SMO program are social objects. Social objects represent the contents created in social media. These include images, videos, blog posts, comments, status updates, wall posts, and all other social activity that have the potential to engage conversation. The goal of SMO is to boost the visibility of social objects as a means to connecting with individuals who are seeking additional information.
The things shared on social media, are web objects, pages, as sites are to the traditional web. As SEO helps increase the visibility of content in Google and Yahoo! for example, SMO helps build the essential bridges between social objects and the individuals performing searches to find relevant content.
Social Objects for Optimization
Social objects are also the catalysts for conversations and they affect behavior within their respective societies. Search results in social media are defined by the elements marked in each social object, which is commonly referred to as metadata. Essentially, metadata is the data that defines other data.
Social objects are contextualized through keywords, titles, descriptions, and/or tags. Understanding these attributes of social objects is one of the most important aspects of a successful Social Media Optimization plan.
Keywords
Keywords are the terms that people use to find relevant information in searches. When selecting keywords for social objects, it's important to remember that the keywords used by customers and influencers are not always the same.
It's also important to use web analytics on websites or blogs to see how people that are doing searches arrive to your site. This allows you to calibrate your keywords accordingly.
Titles
Titles refer to the official designation or name of contents. Instead of focusing on a sensational or controversial title as in other forms of marketing, headlines on the social web should feature title tags and keywords upfront. In social media, headlines must contain the keywords that explicitly match the search patterns of the people are expected to search.
Descriptions
Descriptions is what further refine the context of social objects to attract visitors to view and share the website's/blog's content amongst their social environment.
The description field is the chance to frame an object in order to further convince the viewer to click through to it. Make sure that it includes at least three keywords related to your business/brand and target viewers.
Tags
Tags are keywords that further group and organize social objects within the social network.
Tags are based on a system of classification derived from the practice of collaboratively creating and managing tags to categorize content within specific networks. In order to make sure that the tags are categorized effectively, make sure that they include keywords related to the branding and marketing of the product and/or service, as well as its competition.
Links
Links are the what makes the web. Links serve as the primary force of SEO. As in SEO, links help create traffic to social object, and contribute to the ranking of the website/blog within initial search results. Links equate to authority, and by having an extensive inbound links, the visibility of the social object can earn significant inertia. This will allow it to traverse from resident social network searches to appear in matching results in traditional search engines.
While people who serve businesses can't be everywhere at all times in social media, social objects can serve as their representatives in order to create meaningful conversations now and forward in the future.