Social Media Optimization - A New Generation of Internet Marketing. SMO is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, social news buttons, blogging, and incorporating third-party community functionalities like images and videos. Social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines.

First of all, what is SOCIAL MEDIA

• User generated content.
• User thinks they are in control.
• Quantifies the masses.
• The public forum for the common man.

Focus: Authenticity

Visibility provided by:

• Voting
• Popular consensus via links

Social Media is the new method for gaining credibility, now that traditional news is based on sound bytes, info-tainment, and perceived bias. Massive visibility is possible, in a Ying-Yang way because it is an exact reflection of human opinion, it is not possible to win over everyone, but you do want to talk with those who are receptive.

Seven opportunities for engagement in Social Media:

• Social networks
• Business blogging
• Wiki
• Social bookmarking
• Widgets
• File sharing (YouTube)
• Tagging