Experts consider SMO to be the next wave of online marketing. They have reached at this conclusion after analysing social networks and their ever-growing usages worldwide.
Social media is now much more than just a platform to chat, converse and post photos. These networks feature prominently in online marketing strategies of brands small and big alike cutting across industries.
Further, SMO is a perfect mix of social media and SEO and thus, its benefits are bound to be manifold. This branch of marketing is meant to give a visibility boost to your website across social networks.
Which means, even the
best SEO service won’t be able to fill in the value created by optimization efforts you do put for social media. This is why SMO matters a lot.
Is SMO worth the investment?
This is a good question particularly for brands low on budget yet want to leverage social networks to full. The answer is YES! Well, to understand why an investment in SMO is worth the effort, you need to look at some stats and figures –
✓ The userbase of Facebook is now reached at 1.71 billion people worldwide
✓ Over 1 billion people use social site YouTube
✓ 70% of the total internet population uses social media
✓ Some 200 million users are added to social networks annually
✓ 83% of Fortune 500 companies use Twitter while the rest have a presence on Facebook
You can see how social media is growing at an amazing rate. If your business is not on these networks, it then stands to lose a lot for sure.
Why SMO?
We know social media is one of the best ways to improve organic search results of websites. We also know how social networks have risen in usages world over and how they can’t be ignored.
Here are reasons why SMO is important –
✓ It gives your business an opportunity to connect and reach out to people in various online venues
✓ You leverage social networks and extend the reach of the business
✓ People on the internet can easily link back to your website
✓ Traffic gets driven to your website
✓ Brand awareness takes place
✓ Brand loyalty happens
✓ Your content is shared and spread across social channels
✓ The visibility of your website gets a boost
✓ Your business’ conversion rates go up
Things to know in SMO
SMO is important. Without it, your business won’t be able to extract the most out of social networks. However, there is plenty to consider with social media optimization.
Here are some of things to know in SMO
✓ SMO is about optimizing your site largely through social media
✓ Apart from social network, this marketing method also involves promotion through blogs, communities, podcasts etc.
✓ Experts use RSS feeds, blogging, social bookmarking, photo & image sharing and social news buttons for optimization purposes
✓ It’s about creating links to a site by boosting social media visibility of the website
✓ There as two ways or methods to leverage SMO efforts, first by adding to the content social media features and secondly by doing promotional activities in social media
✓ SMO is about driving traffic to your site sources other than search engines however with the focus to improve ranking and visibility in search engines
✓ It involves getting links to your website
✓ Your social media optimization also includes creating inbound links
✓ You need to do bookmarking and tagging
✓ Your content needs to be shared and spread so that others can benefit from it and make use of it
✓ The more your content travels, the more SMO benefits reach to your website or business
Tips to make SMO beneficial for your website and business
Well, your social media efforts need to be rewarded in due manner as this is why you do it in the first place. However, you need to be aware of the ways and methods of doing SMO and then only can you thing of doing it perfectly.
Here are valuable tips to get the most out of your SMO efforts –
#Create attention-grabbing content
The backbone of your SMO effort would be to creating attention-grabbing content and then spreading it further. You need to cover engaging and compelling topics and post regularly across social channels. Enrich your blog with appealing content, tweet something that catches the attention and use social platforms to inform and entertain your audience.
#Look for more buzz through connections
Social media is all about networking and connections if you’re a brand. Whether your network or friend’s or competitors or industry pals – you need to tap into them all. All your posts and updates and content must get comments, LIKES so that more buzz is created. In a sense, you need to leverage connections no matter from where they come and get the most out of social media.
#Grow and expand your base/audience
Social media benefits more if you have a large audience. Brands that are aware of this don’t delay in engaging with anyone on social media. They know the value of starting a conversation, coming in contact with both, those who matter to the business and even those that don’t. You got to look for ways to expand the base and audience for your business.
#Get the audience back to the site
What purpose of expanding the audience and horizon when you can’t convert them into prospects? So, you must have CTA back to the site. All your marketing materials, including teasers and giveaways, should aim to cox the audience back to the site. In a sense, your messages and ideas and content should guide users clearly about how to reach to the site.
#Get the content updated regularly
The best way to engage your audience is by giving them fresh, unique and updated content to consume. This way, you not only inform them but add value and open the window of enrichment. So, every aspect of your social activity, social posts, including your status and updates must be in tune with the current times.
#Show to the world you social signals
Your social signals are an asset worth spreading and worth showcasing to the world. This way, you can build trust among users and also aim to gain new users for sure. So, from friends to comments to LIKES to tweets to retweets, everything must be shown and leveraged to win the confidence of the target audience out there.
#Promote others’ stuff
Social networks are more of a give-and-take kind of arrangement where you get what you give. This is true in terms of sharing and liking. So, you need to share and promote the stuff of all those who do yours without issues. You need to reciprocate others as only this can help you reach up the ladder and build the brand presence.
#Engage your audience
SMO is successful if you know the art of engaging your audience. Engaging the audience means giving them something they relate to, something that adds value to them. Your social content should be enriching, informative, valuable and compelling, all at the same time. Your audience matters above everything else and you need to keep then engaged.
In overall, you need to trust and hire
social media consulting services and open the big world of prospects for your business. After all, social media is something you just can’t ignore ever.