Trends 2007: SMO Over SEO

Nielsen QuoteSocial Media Optimization

In 2007, look for Social Media Optimization (SMO) or more aptly Social Media Marketing (SMM) to overtake Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as the primary concern of businesses looking to generate web traffic and positive dialog about their brand.

Linking strategies and search optimization should be on every marketer’s ongoing to-do list. However, it is unwise to ignore the influence the vast and ever-shifting voice of online social media continues to have on products, services, perception and commerce.

Driven by human nature and a desire to connect rather than by revenue streams, the growth of social networking shows no sign of waning. Today’s marketers must look for ways to provide ease of connectivity and to integrate seamlessly with emerging online communities and their websites.

But It’s All So Overwhelming

It can be disconcerting to dwell on the potential impact this sea of fickle discourse could have on your business or industry. Instead, strive to monitor and understand its significance. Strategizing methods to harness and utilize the influence of SMM will prove invaluable.

Find your Audience

Submit and extend your content to recognized social media sites with audiences relevant to your industry. Implement strategies to get your brand seen as often as possible on well-known, relevant blogs and optimize for high visibility in social media-specific search and content delivery arenas.

Social Media Marketing Sites

To get you started, here are links to some popular social networking, media, search and content delivery venues:

  1. Digg | Get noticed
  2. Del.icio.us | Get tagged
  3. Wikipedia | Make history
  4. YouTube | Share video
  5. Technorati | Blog central search
  6. Reddit | Get read
  7. Newsvine | Get published
  8. StumbleUpon | Stumble upon commonalities
  9. MySpace | Socialize
  10. Facebook | Stay in touch

Other social networking sites include: Flickr, LinkedIn, Yahoo! Answers, Squidoo, Furl, Frappr, Shoutwire, Slashdot, Second Life.

Each of the sites on this abbreviated list has its own niche within the world of social media. For example, Facebook focuses on social interaction between college and high school students; LinkedIn provides a sophisticated professional networking model; Digg’s community of users determine the relative importance—by category—of a given news item; Second Life is a world unto itself, replete with its own economy, currency (relative to the dollar) and influx of real “first life” corporate investment and brand presence.

Spend some time learning about the nuances of different social media networks, their potential relation to your industry and how to integrate them into an SMO/SMM strategy. Look for ways to incorporate communal RSS feeds, third party links like pushed Flickr images, social bookmarking links, YouTube videos and communication submissions into your 2007 marketing plan.
Social Network


 

Comments

  1. Richard Cannon Says:

    Hello dear author,

    Your article is interesting as well as informative, thanks for such a great information about SMO, SMM and oscourse the listing of Social Bookmarking Sites. This is Richard Cannon from NJ, USA and i ruu the business of wholesale jewelry manufacturing and supplying - I found some drastic changes in SERPs in Goolge for my jewelry website [ http://www.rcjewelry.com/ ].

    According to me Digg.com is the most useful in both the ways to get listed in SERPs as well as getting users for your website.

    Early in this morning, i notice some Ranking improvement in Google SERPs and also got notice that my posting on Digg.com is also listed for the targeted keyword son the same page where my website is listed [ Reference URL : http://www.google.com/search?q=wholesale+gold&hl=en&pwst=1&start=20&sa=N - Digg.com listing is on no 28 and my site is listed at 24 ]

  2. Bodybuilder Says:

    i am using youtube ind wiki, and very good results!

  3. Old SEO Web Design Says:

    Well this is just great. 13 years going with the flow to learn all this stuff I use and now social nedia networks become a factor and I have to learn some more. [I’m pretty lazy albeit successful.]

    I am now running rss feeds in html on 3 of my clients pages. I really like them. But I guess that’s just the tip of the iceburg.

    Thanks for the heads up. See you on the net with higher rankings maybe.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

E-mail Address (will not be published) (required)

Website

Comments

Alas, yes we moderate comments. Please endeavor to add value.
Thank you.


More Thought

.THINK now listed on Alltop.com

under Branding. Grouped by topic, Alltop aggregates stories from “all the top” sites across the web (that’s their story and we’re sticking to it). View our .think listing, here: branding.alltop.

RapidoStart (Mac)

Here’s a free Mac app allowing you to call up, via customized abbreviations, any text string you copy and paste frequently. Best of all the text is placed pre-formatted - returns, bullets and all. It’s become a staple here at Brainstorm. You can download your own at app4mac.

PimpMyNews

If you can get past the vapid brand identity and UI, PimpMyNews, the talking social news site, is an interesting concept. The site will read your RSS feeds to you over your mp3 player, iPhone, etc. or computer.
[via: PR-Squared]

The iPlanet

NPI’s personal cosmos transport. Like Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine Happiness Machine, the iPlanet, a holiday product parody, promises a “thoroughly self-absorbed social media experience.”

Twitter Unseat Email?

Robert Scoble explores the notion in this BusinessWeek piece re: the running debate over where we’re headed with aging, albeit ubiquitous, email paradigms versus spam-free Tweets.
[via: Scobleizer]

Track the Hive’s Buzz

Aggregate the aggregators at Popurls.com—simultaneously follow the most current posts from all the top sites like Digg, Newsvine, YouTube and Flickr. Or, “find your favorite thing,” over at Buzzfeed.

Fountain

Peter Bruhn’s Swedish type foundry is preparing a new freshet of fonts to flow forth and flourish among us—according to Typographi and Bruhn himself.
[via: Sheer Brick]

Design by Metaphor

A word from A List Apart about design based on simile.

Master’s Color Palettes

Looking for a digital color scheme that will last the ages? Colour Lovers explores masters inspired color schemes.

Visualizing Volumes

Can’t see how your two soda bottles a day are impacting the environment? Chris Jordan’s images will help you visualize it. View his amazing statistical depictions at Running the Numbers, An American Self-Portrait.

Steve Jobs Unveils the Apple iRack

Regardless of your geopolitical views you’ll likely appreciate the satirical humor of this product parody sketch run amok.

Qbesq

Okay this would just be a goofy flash-based Spirograph-esque toy if it didn’t generate downloadable .svg (Scalable Vector Graphic) files—which it does. Pattern enthusiasts, meet Qbesq.

Those Funny Googlers

Here’s Google’s take on the phrase, “Across the pond.” Visit Google Maps, enter New York to London in the search field, scroll to step #24.

Tip: Reducing Firefox Memory Usage

How to reduce Firefox from a memory hog to a piglet. Caught this Firefox usage tip over on Ade Olonoh’s blog (see comments).

CSS Developments

If you’re a developer or just interested in CSS, check out this article entitled, #IEroot — Targeting IE Using Conditional Comments and Just One Stylesheet,” over on the PIE site.

The History of Branding

An iconic-rich, one-click site on how hundreds of the planet’s most noteworthy brands came to be. Updated daily.

The Hexafluoride Float

From the Bonn Physikshow—A lesson on YouTube regarding the denser than air properties of hexafluoride (likely sulphur hexafluoride) gas.

Worst Website Design, Ever?

Enter at your own risk. A proof of concept that design does matter. Havenworks.com hailed on Digg recently as perhaps, “…the most poorly designed website in the world!”

50 Essential Bookmarks

Originally published in Communication Arts November Design Annual 2006, here’s their list of 50 essential bookmarks. Conspicuously missing, sites such as Delicious, Technorati and Lifehacker.

Greetings Earthling

Sure to appeal to the megalomaniacal extraterrestrial in all of us. World, meet geoGreetings. When you care enough to send a satellite image.

A Modern Medium

An interactive glimpse into the the random and spontaneous feedback Jackson Pollock once realized in his medium—sans the clean up.

Impressive Product

Pressed toast with panache. From the, “Table Manners Collection,” Delfts Toast Pan by Minale Maeda. As seen on “ohmygooshness.”

Other Thoughts

Items we find compelling, of late.

Our latest top 20 list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board: Top 20 Thoughts on What No.15 Means

(at right)

.think Flickr

Objects of interest, engaging designs, diagrams, downloadable visuals and any other imagery we felt worth sharing.

Top 20 Top 20 Things to do (we did)
on the 4th of July

  1. Enjoy an apple pie in a Chevrolet…or a nutrition bar in a Smart Car
  2. Wax my upper lip
  3. Overdose on televised sports
  4. See Wall-E
  5. Midnight Parade – Anderson
  6. Read the Declaration of Independence (first part anyway)
  7. Blow off steam, or digits
  8. Enjoy the neighbors’ fireworks, late at night, for weeks
  9. Populate FunctionFox
  10. Rest my dogs
  11. Wax the car
  12. Wax nostalgic
  13. Watch fireworks…Just a thought
  14. Groove to the sounds of Baghdad (try Quantum Sonic Orchestra…or the Bamboos–nostalgia circa 1977)
  15. Fret all night that Homeland Security doesn’t run a keyword analysis and cough up #16
  16. “Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it”
  17. Grill some burgers & dogs cats
  18. Hope it doesn’t rain cats, burgers and dogs
  19. Grill the Burgher – and his dog – get to the bottom of this “independence”
  20. Join the kids in the bike parade
  21. Celebrate with the Katzenbergers
  22. See the entire board