All digital marketers are knowledgeable about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on some level. By making use of the reach of search engines – such as Google or Bing – to fuel your digital marketing campaign has been a successful strategy employed for years. However as social media grows as one of the top platforms in order to reach consumers, new approaches to digital marketing have emerged. One of the top strategies utilised by businesses looking to maximize their reach online is Social Media Optimisation (SMO).
What Is Social Media Optimisation?
The term ‘SMO’ refers to the usage of social media networks in order to manage as well as grow an organisation’s message and online presence. As a digital marketing strategy, social media optimisation can be utilised to:
- Enhance the perception of new products and services,
- Get in touch with customers, and
- Improve potential damaging news.
For many years, SEO was the standard for digital marketing efforts. While SMO and SEO have similar goals – to generate web traffic and increase awareness for a company’s website – SEO is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic through the process of increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine, particularly Google.
Most recently, social media marketing has come to the fore, at times coming together with SEO and – in some instances – replacing it as the most effective way to:
- Boost a brand,
- Oversee lead generation,
- Boost a company’s visibility in the online space, as well as
- Link up to an audience.
A number of different social media platforms can be utilised for social media marketing, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Pinterest.
SMO often directs the public from these social media platforms to the organisation’s website, where more information may be provided. For instance, a campaign to boost awareness about a new automobile on social media may direct the visitor to a business webpage that provides information about where local dealerships are located as well as how to schedule a test drive.