The Rise of Social Media Optimisation - Internet Marketing Trends

Some of the most visited websites include social media sites such as Facebook , Digg , Technorati , Muti , Twitter and YouTube . Each of these sites attract incredible volumes of international traffic because they allow users to interact socially on many levels. Social media optimisation is based on the theory that when websites provide users with the ability to publish content and interact with one another they attract more traffic. The idea of social media optimisation is to attract traffic from sources other than search engines and that is the essential difference between Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO).

Whilst both strategies have the same objective i.e. improving website traffic, search engine optimisation includes various techniques for improving your search rankings whilst social media optimisation utilises viral marketing or micro-sharing techniques.

SMO, however is more than an Internet marketing strategy. It has two dimensions one being Internet marketing and the other being Online Reputation Management. SMO can be used in two ways: to manage online public perception of your organisation and the products and services offered and to use social media tools to attract traffic to your website increasing sales conversion.

SMO and Online Reputation Management:

Organisations realise that they do not exist in a vacuum. The premise of modern strategic management is based on the knowledge that organisations exist in relation to their internal and external environments. Within these environments there are various stakeholders. Customers, owners, shareholders, suppliers, employees, the public, the media and competitors need to be communicated with and their perceptions of the organisation managed. Perceptions or reputations were traditionally managed under the functions of public relations and/or corporate communications. The rise of online social media has necessitated the creation of the field of online reputation management in which an organisation’s online reputation is tracked and managed.

SMO and Internet Marketing:

Cyberspace is a highly viral environment. Marketers have always used publicity to promote organisations, people, products and services. We know that a great product won’t remain a secret for long as people tend to talk about it. This is word of mouth advertising. In a digital world, the Internet serves as an incubator for publicity and word of mouth advertising. Hence we speak of viral marketing in which information travels like a virus from person to person, or group to group infecting individuals with awareness, information, and sometimes passing on value judgements. Social media optimisation mobilises the Internet’s viral potential to attract visitors by offering great content, tools and widgets, exclusive information and social platforms such as forums and blogs.

Mobilising Social Media

There are many practical ways in-which marketers use social media optimisation to attract traffic and manage online reputations. Some basic techniques include the provision of interactive features such as blogs, forums and wiki’s. RSS feeds are also useful whilst the incorporation of third party sites such as Digg, YouTube, Flikr (and locally) Muti and Laaikit are critical.

There are many different approaches to and techniques for the use of social media optimisation. Rohit Bhargava’s rules of Conducting Social Media Optimisation http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html provides a comprehensive description of the various techniques.

Although Rohit’s original top 5 rules can be applied widely each websites social media strategy will differ based on the communication needs of the organisation and the target audience.