We all know we need to play nice with Google to have the favor returned in the online world.
There are two ways you can work to do that as you build your business on the web: SMO and SEO.
Today we’re going to tackle the basics of SMO, how it can help you and what to do about it!
SMO is Social Media Optimization.
Google tracks how many shares, comments, re-posts, clicks and link backs to your website/content are done across the web. High numbers establishes “social proof” that you are an expert in your field and thus Google recognizes this and rewards it with higher ranking. You can easily optimize this process by helping your content be visible and easily “re-purposed” across many social networks. You want to continually be feeding the Google Beast! Here’s how…
Steps to increase SMO:
- Expert, expert, expert. Show that you either know what you are talking about or have great resources that point to others in your field that do. Hopefully a mixture of both! You want people to see your content, your website, or your blog as the one-stop-shop for information they might need relating to your industry topic.
- Do some keyword homework, and use those same keywords across all social media sites. This brings consistency to your online presence, and helps Google present you to the right people.
- Engage with your audience. Ask for comments, respond to comments, set up social share buttons on every post/page, and then ‘push’ these posts out to all your social media platforms. Make it EASY for your readers to engage. Just like the rest of us if your reader is more comfortable on LinkedIn then make sure you are sending your content there to be seen and commented on from the comfort of their own ‘home’.
- The nitty gritty. Keep your title tags short and shareable, make it twitter friendly! And as we all have heard a thousand times… A picture is worth a thousand words. Use them!
- A quick tip. Finally there is some research that states certain platforms are more optimization friendly, notably Google+ and LinkedIn. Both will show up very high in your search rankings. Make it a goal to define a presence on one or both of these platforms in the next few months of
2014!
[Tweet “5 easy steps to increase your SMO, every time.”]
There you have it…SMO basics, pick one step to try this week and make it happen! Which one will you choose?
As always I’m here to help.
Want a free mini Social Media Diagnostic? I’m doing 10 this month! Email strategy@socialmediaandpr.com to apply.
Photo credit: Bob Massa on Flickr
Engagement is crucial to my SMO strategy – as well as my brand. People know me to be someone who has real conversations with people. Any suggestions on how to do this in a way that doesn’t leave you spending ALL your time on social media?
Hi Lisa,
I had this issue recently – and I was becoming very unproductive as a result.
This is what works for me:
> engage in targeted conversations, at certain times of day (time restricted). > Turning all of my email & mobile / cell notifications OFF (yes, that’s right – so I am not tempted.
>Engaging in less Tweet Chats – they are fun, but I wasn’t getting what I really needed: targeted local connections in Australia.
> Posting automated content that is designed to start conversations either on Twitter or with people through my company. I post automated material to capture an audience that is tweeting when I am sleeping 🙂
I hope some of this helps!
Vanessa I love that you “unplug”! I do too, it’s amazing to me how much work I can get done when I focus.
Strategy Lisa! If you need to, set a kitchen timer.
Engagement is crucial to everyones SMO strategy. You can post all day long, but if you’re not having those conversations, eventually people will stop listening!
One of the first thing I do with my clients is a full out social media strategy collaboration session. You need to look hard at what sites work for you, and how best to spend your time on each of those sites. It’s a hard question to answer when I haven’t done the research! But you can, and if you want some help, you know how to find me.
Thank you so much for this. I never thought to use my keywords across my social media platforms as well. I will be developing a new SM strategy over the coming weeks and I will be sure to start doing this. I just started on google+ and haven’t seen an increase in my rankings, but I hope it helps 🙂
Glad it was helpful Krystal! Strategic, consistent effort pays off.
Ooh . . . I’m guilty lately of not having short titles :). It makes sense to me that Google + and LinkedIn are more optimization-friendly. LinkedIn is very easy for using your keywords.
Great tips! I had to pin this one as a keeper! 🙂
Great advice and love how you use CoSchedule to encourage readers to share your post on Twitter.
I like to make it really easy to share my stuff!
For the success of social media or search engine optimization, content is the key as it will allow more people to visit a website which will resulted in high rank. There is big competition among people to get more traffic so everyone is trying to follow best practice to achieve his goals. I am pleased to read some great tips for social media optimization discussed comprehensively in this post 🙂