The social media and network communities have been one of the fast growing phenomenons in recent years and show no sign of slowing down. Have you ever thought about how to harness its power and energy to benefit your firm or website?
It has long been said that viral marketing, or word of mouth, is the most effective form of marketing as it implies an element of trust and strong recommendation. A customer is more likely to take the advice of a friend or colleague about a new product than any traditional promotional activity. Given that social networking sites rely on friendship as their basis for linking people, being found on one site implies that the user is recommending the product or service, making it more attractive to other users.
The key aim of SMO is to drive traffic to the merchant’s site but it does so in a more organic way when compared to linking from search engines. There is an opportunity to get the results you really want but you need to be clear in your mind what these are. What sort of customer are you looking for, what industry are you in and what outcome do you want from this optimization?
A site like Digg is well known in social media circles but is it right for the content of your website? A link from Digg may bring a mass of visitors to your site but if none are likely to hang around or make a purchase, will it be worth the time and effort (and no doubt bandwidth) to get this result. Knowing your market and where to reach them is paramount to getting the best from SMO. This could be when it is time to obtain the assistance from an internet marketing consultant. They will be able to provide an overview of your site and inform you of where you would be best focussing you attentions on.
Like most forms of internet marketing, Social Media Optimization is merely one part of the entire process of obtaining traffic and then turning that traffic into sales or repeat visitors. In the end content will always be king but if you have the content that people want to see, successfully using SMO will enhance your chances of reaching out and greatly increasing the number of people who know your site and visit it regularly.
