Social web is the new buzzword and every organization across industries is embracing it as the new distribution channel for its intellectual assets. It does not matter if you are in the creative business, marketing, or into IT, the social Web is an amazing medium that can create a brand, build visibility, and generate demand for your products or services. It’s about exploiting the socialized form of inbound marketing to boost the discover-ability of your content in the social web. The purpose of social media optimization seems very much similar to that of search engine optimization (SEO). As we are aware that search engines like Google and Bing help people find pertinent content and SEO is about optimizing the content so that it is discovered in search engine result pages (SERPs). However the mechanics of SEO writing are different from methods needed to enhance visibility in social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.

Focusing on social media optimization

Social networking channels are increasingly being used by people to communicate, find relevant and exciting content and share it with their connections. So now in addition to SEO, you have to put efforts into Social Media Optimization (SMO) program and the related content to boost visibility in these new social spaces. Failure to do so could mean massive loss. Social networks are increasingly becoming popular with people using them ceaselessly to find content in and around their social graph. According to recent market studies, social media sites such as Wikipedia, blogs, and social networks are used more vigorously by people to get information than sites that are dedicated to publish information particularly to help individuals find deeper analysis and details. Social media is gradually making its way to become a strong product research channel. This provides a golden opportunity for companies to convey their value and insight to their target audience in the most effective manner.

You might be a small startup company with very little experience in your domain and market goings on. But through diligent and intelligent postings of your activities on Facebook, you can eventually earn the attention of the online press, blogs and your target audience. By simply making your content visible by those looking for related material will allow your brand to earn prominence.

Creating content for social media optimization program

Optimization of the content for social media and its proper distribution are necessary for any social media optimization program to be successful. SMO content can be anything such as pictures, videos, blog posts, comments, status updates, presentations and all other social activity that have the potential to initiate online conversations. The basic aim is to amplify the visibility of the SMO content as a way of connecting with visitors who are looking for further information and direction.

The SMO content can serve as the nucleus of online conversation in form of the pictures published on Flickr, the videos uploaded on YouTube, the wall posts shared in Facebook, the tweets posted on Twitter, a blog post or a blog comment, etc. They are to social media what web pages, and sites are to the traditional Web. As SEO aims to increase the visibility of content in search engines, social media optimization is directed at taking the SMO content to the individuals performing searches to find relevant substance. You can contextualize SMO content through the use of keywords, headings, subheadings, description, and tags.

Conclusion

Social media optimization provides a great way to spark conversations and occurrences online and in the process reach out to customers and prospects. Understanding the attributes of effective SMO writing is therefore crucial to a comprehensive SMO plan. Social media optimization is here to stay and is now hailed as the new SEO.