SMO

Social Media Optimisation

With over 750 million users, Facebook has become a dominant force on the internet. The social network and others like it have quickly become fertile ground for advertising. SMO is sometimes referred to as Facebook marketing or Facebook advertising as Facebook is the dominant social network and the most lucrative location for marketing.

SMO is quite different from other forms of online marketing like SEO, SEM, and pay per click in that the techniques used to advertise through social media must be designed so that users will pick up the ads and disseminate them. It is a more active process and one that requires a very deep understanding of market trends and of human psychology.

What Does SMO Consist Of?

SMO can be broken down into two basic marketing categories: social media that is added to content and promotional activity within social networks. The first of these refers to adding RSS feeds, share buttons, like buttons, and so forth to a webpage to create a social network around the page. Selecting appropriate RSS feeds and social news is critical to driving traffic to a site.

Most SMO activity deals with actual promotion within a social network. This can include Facebook ads, blogs, participating in discussion groups, and so forth. The purpose of these activities is to send traffic to a website. In 2010, Facebook surpassed Google in the number of page views per day, making it a critical marketing site.

One of the key aspects of social media optimisation is online reputation management (ORM). ORM refers to building good will and brand recognition by spreading positive news about a product or company. Social media is critical for ORM because of its peer to peer nature. Individuals are much more likely to trust friends and family than advertisements. The key to ORM and building a Facebook business presence is to construct messages that do not seem like advertisements, but genuinely add value to social media.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook ads often take the form of direct advertising that alters users to what their friends are doing and what products they are purchasing. For instance, if a friend buys a product through Facebook, a message will be posted to other friend’s news feeds providing strong peer incentive to investigate the same product. Building a Facebook business presence is a necessary component of successful social media marketing.

Special Uses of SMO

Beyond ORM and brand building, social media offers the unique ability for advertisers to also receive real-time feedback. Collecting and utilizing this information is of tremendous importance as it can help determine the direction that not only advertisement should take, but also the brand itself. It provides immediate market research that is invaluable to any brand.

SMO and Facebook business building necessitate getting customers and potential customers involved in a social network that is based around a brand or product. Activities like integrated social media participation, surveys and rewards, and even games are accessed through social media in ways that build brand image and drive traffic to its website. Implementing these strategies successfully depends on the ability to properly interpret and understand social network trends, something that is most efficiently accomplished by a SMO professional.