Social Media Optimisation – SMO – What You Need to Know

Social Media Optimisation or SMO for short has been around for some time. However, it has never gained the traction that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has. To be honest that surprises me. With over 38 million people in the UK actively engaged with different social media platforms, you would be a fool not to have an SMO strategy.

What is Social Media Optimisation

Let’s start by looking at what SMO is. Without wishing to state the obvious it is the process of ensuring that whatever you post to social media is optimised for that particular platform. What you will need to optimise depends on which platform you are using, what you are trying to achieve and who your target audience is. There are three different stages of any SMO strategy. Targetting, engaging and posting. You might be very surprised to see posting as the last stage. Social media is all about post stuff right? Yes, but only if you are posting the right “stuff ” to the right people at the right time. So let’s take a look at the three stages.

Targeting

When it comes to SMO there is no substitute for research. You must ensure you pick the platform where your target audience will be.  Do not just sign up for every platform and hope. There is a lot of data out there to help you decide which platform is right for your business. Having a lot of backlinks to your website from social media networks is not Social media optimisation. Sadly exactly the opposite is true. Think of it as more social media suicide. If your backlinks from social media are not relevant to the audience on that platform they will actually damage both your SMO and your SEO. Don’t do it.

Engaging

Your SMO strategy must be based on the concept of engaging with the correct audience. You should be prepared to join in on existing conversations for a while. Then and only then should you consider posting your relevant content with the appropriate backlinks. Random and indiscriminate link posting without actively engaging in the conversations will get you unfollowed very quickly. Not only that but as Google Hummingbird now included social shares in your page ranking your website’s authority will also take a significant hit. So not good

Posting

It is likely that your post will contain an image or a video. Sadly every platform has a different standard size. For your post, to look it absolute best and get the optimal engagement you will need to know what the size is and have an image that works in these different sizes. I could list all the different sizes here but instead, follow this link to a fantastic infographic that as all the sizes you will need.

Then you will need to look at the written content. Your content needs to be relevant and relevant.

Is your content relevant to the audience using that platform and relevant to your business? If you cant answer yes to both of these do not post it. Never be tempted to post to a group just because it has 1000’s of members. Better to post to one person who will read your content and follow your backlink that 10,000 that don’t. That my friend is what Social Media Optimisation is all about. Getting your content in front of the right people at the right time.

This is not a sprint but a carefully practised middle distance event.