Social media optimization is the art of leveraging sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to connect with your customers and build a more intimate experience. These sites let you interface with clients and fans in a number of valuable ways — to extend your brand, amplify your message, stay on people's radar screen, and listen to what the Web is saying about you.
Think of social media as a stand-in for the days of good old-fashioned corner stores, where every customer knew your name and the whole town understood what you stood for. The difference? These swift social sites offer lightning quick collaboration and communication on a scale that would make Norman Rockwell blanch.
The basic principle of social media marketing strategies is fairly straightforward: when your company is more engaged with its clients, those clients will reward you with enhanced attention and loyalty. And if your company is especially helpful, fascinating or funny in these interactions, all the better.
Think of the brands and businesses with which you feel the strongest identification. Chances are you have experienced a memorable and positive interaction with that company at one time or another. There is nothing like the power of human connection to help foster brand identity and customer fidelity.
Social media is the 21st Century version of a personal touch.
Where SMO Meets SEO
But engagement is just one piece of this puzzle. Google and its cohorts have recently announced that they will increasingly begin to emphasize social media in their quest to return relevant results. That means that businesses that have earned links and recommendations from tastemakers in your community will soon begin to see a bump in rankings. And THAT means that we are back to the basic law of optimization: Content is King.
Make your blog fascinating, make your tweets entertaining and quotable, make your Facebook page rewarding and informative, and the rankings will follow. Position yourself as a thought leader in your field and your influence will continue to grow across the board. Clients, customers, and visitors love sites that reward them with fresh content and useful links on a daily basis. And your site will rise inexorably through the dual power of conventional SEO, and the valuable mentions you earn through social media.
The good news is that all the machinery is already in place. It takes just a couple days to set up sleek profile pages at all the sites you will use for your social media marketing. It takes just a little creative thought to incentivize that all-important "Like" button and to gain new "followers" on Twitter. Your SMO expert can then link these sites together seamlessly to amplify your company's voice, cross-posting status updates, tweets, links, and media in the blink of an eye.
The heart and soul of effective digital strategy is to be worthy. This idea does not change as you move from SEO to SMO to whatever comes next. Everybody is looking for value, customers love to be heard, and top brands thrive when people feel like they know you. If you want to learn more about how to harness the unprecedented power of social media optimization, please don't hesitate to contact the SMO experts of Breakthrough Content today.