What does SMO Mean?

Back in 2006, when popular social media platforms were being conceived, Rohit Bhargava, a marketer had an ingenious idea of conjoining the concept of SEO with the oncoming trend of social media. And thus on behalf of his premonition, he gave birth to Social Media Optimization.

It is true that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are very closely linked. They are like two blood-brothers working on a similar designation but in two different firms. SEO mainly focuses on boosting a website’s traffic on a search engine platform while the role of SMO remains to increase awareness of a product or service or even an event on social media platforms.

SMO involves the creation of contents such as videos, graphics, and pictures which are enticing to the eyes and encourages the viewers or readers to share it, thereby increasing the awareness of the product or service.

One way of doing this kind of promotion is to do Viral marketing. The term viral marketing defines
itself. It can be called a kind of marketing that resorts to the promotion of goods and services through
a sensational or viral video, song, image or gif. Remember the Kiki challenge? Through the
publicization of this challenge Drake (the singer of the song) was able to gain more than 180 million
viewership on YouTube Another example is Pepsi who, in 2017, released an advertisement based on
the viral hashtag #blacklivesmatter. This ad, however, became clouded in controversy as people on
social media started backlashing Pepsi for trivializing a sensitive topic. These are just a few examples
from a long list.     

Viral Marketing then becomes important for Social Media Optimization as companies do the social
posting of indirectly promotional content based on a viral event. 

Rules of SMO

Rohit Bhargava initially gave five rules (which today have augmented to 16, but these remain the
essentials) of SMO that became an indispensable part of performing social media optimization. The
following are the same:

1. Objective- The mission of SMO is to create brand awareness through different Social Media Marketing tactics and strategies such as viral seeding/viral marketing, influencer marketing, social campaigning, etc.
2. Listening- Since social media is a direct link between companies and consumers, feedback becomes instant. A good part of SMO then requires redressing and reading feedbacks to improve a company’s product or service.
3. Audience- An important part of performing SMO is to know your audience. Catering to the wrong audience will only produce false leads. Similarly catering the wrong thing to the right audience will only jeopardize the company’s goodwill. Therefore, this rule squarely becomes an important rule to do SMO properly. The company is required to conduct research about the preferences of the target audience and assemble the product or service accordingly.
4. Participation- The company is required to keep an engagement attitude within the periphery of social media. This ensures to the audience that the company is alive in the competition.
5. Measurement- It is necessary to keep an organized record of likes, comments, and shares by the target audience. This does not require any explanation. Just take it as the fifth commandment of SMO. “Thou shalt measure thine social media engagement.”  

SMO Tools

There are innumerable tools available for doing good SMO. But since we provide best at CTCDC, we’ll list you the best tools for Social Media Optimization:

1.Hootsuite-  This social media management platform performs online duties of messaging,

posting and updating of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and

YouTube.  

2.Buffer- This is manna for social fanatics as this software application allows schedule posting on
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin. Working for web and mobile, Buffer also serves as

a browser and newsreader application. Its additional features (which are unfortunately paid) allows

users to access RSS Feeds and provides analytics to the users.

3.SEMrush- SEMrush is a software service that retails online visibility and marketing analytics
subscriptions.

4.Canva- Last but not least, Canva allows users to create and edit photographs, vectors, graphics,
and fonts. This tool is an important one for freelancers.