Social Media Optimization
MySpace.com, YouTube, Flickr and Digg are good examples
of social media. All four are amongst the top 25 websites
in the United States1.
The World Wide Web was designed from the beginning to be an interconnected social space, making it easy for individual webmasters to link to each other. This interactive component of the web required a certain level of technical mastery, making it primarily the domain of a select group that had the skills to operate websites.
Gradually, through over the evolution of the web these technical barriers have been reduced and the average person is now able to start a blog or setup their own home page in minutes. Major websites have developed into social infrastructures, making it easy to share their photos, home movies, favorite websites, opinions – even their deepest secrets.
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a newly-minted approach to marketing that encourages breaking down the borders between a website and the social marketplace. A “borderless” website encourages the use of technology to interweave its own content with the content of others in such a way that there are free flowing paths between a company’s website and that of the people that make up their potential customer base.
There is no standard approach to social media optimization as each website requires different techniques and technologies. The first steps we usually take are to examine the attitude, personality, and overall message of a website, in conjunction with the goals that the website was designed to achieve. We then craft a social media strategy that identifies ways that websites could increase their participation in the social marketplace and offer our technical services in areas that we can assist or facilitate.
Above all, we strive for authenticity in all social media marketing, as a company’s reputation online is one of their strongest social assets. We avoid techniques that are likely to be considered “spamming” or against another website’s terms of service and instead focus on ways to add natural value to the targeted communities.
We’ve emphasized Internet community development throughout our history and our approaches are heavily influenced by a background in Sociology. We are excited to offer this new service.
For more information about Social Media Optimization visit SMOblog, a blog about all things SMO and social media that is run by Mark Blair.