SMO – Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization – what is that?

…a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a “Digg This” button, blogging and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is a form of search engine marketing.

Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines such as Technorati. source

I’ve been involved in Social Media for just over three years now and there’s always more to share. SMO demonstrates the power of “word of mouth” advertising at a whole new level. It’s networking for nerds, or at least that’s how it started.

As I teach small business startups about SMO, the best way I can explain it is a way to get your name out there to as many people in a variety of creative ways.

Here are some of my favorite ways to connect online: