Social Media Optimization is a concept that is making its way into mainstream marketing publications. Social Media Optimization or SMO is a concept coined by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. In his 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization, Rohit explains that:
“The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”
Social Media Demographics
A common misconception about popular social network sites like MySpace, is that they are the domains of the teens and preteens. A recent comScore study found that as MySpace and the social networks grow and become more mainstream, the demographics change as their reach extends into a greater part of the population.
For example in 2005, 50% of MySpace’s visitors were a least 25 years old. In August 2006, that number had risen to 67%. The 12-17 age group which used to account for 24.7% of MySpace’s visitors now accounts for less than 12%. Today there are almost as many over 55 year olds using MySpace as there are teenagers (11.9% to 11%)!
Social Media Optimization and Search
While social medial optimization is still in its infancy, we are starting to see social media tactics influence the organic search engine results of the traditional search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
The most common social media tactic today is syndicated content or blogging. Blogs provide the ability to distribute fresh, relevant, and authoritative content that users can find and link to via social media search engines like Technorati and del.icio.us. Blogs become an authority on a topic because other blogs link to them (similar to how website rankings work). Blogs are able to also pass this “authority” to other blogs or websites by linking out to them.
None of the other social media sites have so far shown the ability to create or pass the level of authoritativeness that blogs has. However as social media sites continue to attract more of a mainstream audience, Catalyst believes that other social media sites will become authorities on a wide variety of topics. As such, Catalyst recommends that if you are considering implementing a social media optimization campaign that you consider not only how the campaign will tie into your existing website strategy, but also how the social media campaign can increase the authoritativeness of your existing website.
