What are Social Media Marketing and Social Media Optimisation?

Glen Allsopp / 27 Comments / August 31st, 2007 / Subscribe via RSS

Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO) are two of the most popular upcoming ‘buzzwords’ in the Internet Marketing industry. SMO was the first term to be ‘coined’ by Rohit Bhargava when he wrote about the 5 rules of SMO. Social Media Marketing was a term that was defined a little later but in essence the two go together.

What’s the Difference

To me, Social Media Optimisation (SMO) is the things you can do ‘on site’ to your website where as Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the things you do off-site. This is slightly different to SEO where it can be done on site and off site. Confused yet?

SMO is a subset of overall SMM just like SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a subject of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Instead of repeating what has been perfectly said around the web I’m going to quote Cameron Olthius for some great definitions of the two.

Social Media Optimisation

SMO refers to the process of refining a website (optimizing it) so that it’s awareness and content are easily spread through social mediums and online communities by users and visitors of the website. This can include anything done “on-page” such as improving the design and usability of the website so that it becomes more compelling to users, in an effort to help them spread it through social media sites. The simplest example of SMO is represented by all the “digg this” and “add to delicious” icons and links that are all over the web today.

Social Media Marketing

SMM on the other hand plays more of an active role in relation to social media by referring to the creation and distribution of content and other messages through the social web by some form of viral marketing. This can be anything from creating compelling content that gets bookmarked and even hits digg’s homepage to spreading a viral video by putting it on YouTube and other social media websites. It’s about the things that are done off-site, for example, participating in online communities where your customers hang out would be an active role that falls under SMM.

How to Make your site Social Media Friendly

• Don’t be static. Gone are the days when you could put up a site and leave it, these days information is flowing from all corners of the web and if you want to be heard you need to have a voice. One of the best ways you can have a voice is to start a blog, this allows you to easily update your website with minimal work
• Make it Easy for People to share your content. What this means that it is recommended to have Del.icious, Digg and Email icons on your websites to not only encourage people to share your content but also to make it easy for them to share your content. Of course not all your visitors will do this for you, but if your content is good and people use these services; they probably will. You are likely to notice a lot of websites include technorati tag’s on their blog posts but I havn’t found this a worthy addition to my sites so use it on your own merit.
• Use non-text resources. I have personally created audio files, videos and pdf’s that you can submit to sites that list these both in directory format and as an overall database. Places to submit your PDF files could include FreeIQ and Scribd. Where as you could submit your video content to both Youtube and Metacafe.

Rules of Social Media Marketing
The following rules were originally used to describe SMO but that was later defined as being things done to the ‘on-page’ elements of a website. Therefore this list is the rules of general Social Media Marketing. I’m going to be using the same points for the rules that set off a meme like reaction around the web a year ago but with my own details.

There have been many more ‘rules’ added to the definition of SMO since Rohit wrote his list of 5 so heres a brieft look at what has been mentioned:

• 1. Increase your Linkability. Static sites are a thing of the past, especially in terms of popularity. One of the best ways to have a voice online and be able to update your site daily is to have a blog. This allows you to have an RSS feed where people can catch up on your latest content.
• 2. Make Tagging & Bookmarking Easy. This means have your website setup so that it is easier for people to link to you. Such things can include buttons for submitting your site to Digg or tagging your site at Del.icio.us.
• 3. Reward Inbound links. This can be done by linking back to the people who link to you, visit their site and leave comments on their blog or generally help promote their site socially.
• 4. Help your Content travel. This is basically allowing your content that isnt’ specifically text spread around the web. Podcasts can be added to podcast directories while Video’s can be submitted to the likes of Youtube and Metacafe.
• 5. Encourage the mashup. Youtube’s success relied a lot on people being able to embed their videos elsewhere. Allow your content to be used elsewhere, a good example of this can be to ensure your updating content has an RSS feed.
• 6. Be a User Resource. This means having quality content on your site and being a place that people can come back to for the best content on a particular niche. This is also advised even if producing the content doesn’t necessarily help you in terms of financial gain or even if it means linking out to your competitors.
• 7. Reward Users. If people are being active on your website submitting your content to places or leaving comments then reward them. Run a competition or just email them to show your appreciation. They will like the fact you recognise them and like what they are doing.
• 8. Participate. The best way to understand the enjoyment users get from being social on some of the top websites is to get in there and do it yourself. Not only that but comment on the blogs you read in your niche and encourage discussion on relevant forums and communities.
• 9. Know how to Target your Audience. Make sure you know who you are marketing. It would obviously be great to have everyone using your…mortagage calculator tool but you have to be realistic in terms of the chances of that happening.
• 10. Create Content. Not just any content, but content that is remarkable or unique, content that can easily spread. No matter what industry you are in there is something unique you can create, whether it will spread or not is another matter but you have to create it to try.
• 11. Be Real. Don’t try and be something your not, don’t try and claim you do something you don’t. Transparency is accepted and respected, blatent marketing where it isn’t wanted is only bad for your name and the name of your company.
• 12. Don’t forget your Roots. It can be easy for your ego to inflate by hitting the digg homepage or getting lots of links. Remember those who helped you get where you are and thank all them for just that.
• 13. Try new things. Social Media is changing all the time so don’t just rely on someone to have all the answers for you, get out there and try things out for yourself. This way you can know if certain information is true and you are able to stay one step ahead of the game.
• 14. Develop a Strategy. Outline your Social Media objectives and your goals. Be aware of your desired outcome for things such as links, conversions and traffic.
• 15. Choose your Tactics Wisely. 1% of people in Social Media are creating content, 9% will enrich the content and 90% of people are consuming the content, that is a lot of leverage. Work out what tactics have given the best outcome and work to re-produce those efficiently.
• 16. Make Social Media part of your Best Practices. Find ways to include social media marketing in your client documentation and information distribution

My Own Additions
These rules took off around a year ago but I certainly don’t think it’s too late to add to the list so here’s what I have to add:

• 17. Be Social. Social Media is all about being social on websites. Don’t use the likes of Digg and StumbleUpon just to generate the by product of links and traffic but really do get involved and enjoy their communities.
• 18. Don’t Manipulate results. Social Media is more about pull marketing rather than push marketing as you cannot force information onto people. Don’t create multiple sites and vote on your own stories or answer your own questions on the likes of Yahoo Answers for more points.

Thanks to Rohit, Jeremiah, Cameron, Loren and Lee.

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