Social Media Optimization (SMO)

http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html

Blog entry: “5 Rules of Social Media Optimization,” from the Influential Interactive Marketing blog of Rohit Bhargava, the VP of Interactive Marketing at Ogilvy Public Relations. Discusses the benefits of optimizing for social media as well as for search engines and offers suggestions including “increase your linkability,” “make tagging and bookmarking easy,” “reward inbound links,” “help your content travel” and “encourage the mashup.”

“Introduction to Social Media Optimization”

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/introduction-to-social-media-optimization.html

Blog entry: “Introduction to Social Media Optimization,” by web strategy consultant Cameron Olthius on the Pronet Advertising blog. The author offers definitions of social media/SMO and describes the “pull marketing” approach to social media optimization. Also discusses the five pillars of SMO described by Rohit Bhargava and lists several additional best practices including “participate,” “know how to target your audience,” “create content,” and “be real.”

“A Comparison of SEO and SMO”

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/a-comparison-of-seo-and-smo.html

Blog entry: “A Comparison of SEO and SMO,” by web strategy consultant Cameron Olthius on the Pronet Advertising blog. Discusses some the similarities and differences between search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO). Similarities include development of linkability and good content, and the use of pull marketing, while differences are channels (search engines vs. community media, blogs, bookmarking sites), target audience, goals and participation.

“UnGoogle Your Marketing with Social Media”

http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2006/09/14/ungoogle-your-marketing-with-social-media

Article: “UnGoogle Your Marketing with Social Media,” by Lee Odden of TopRank Marketing. Discusses the growing appeal of social media optimization as an alternative to search engine optimization for free web traffic generation.

Social Media Optimization

http://social-media-optimization.com/

Social Media Optimization is the blog of David Wilson, co-owner of search marketing company Braveheart Design, Inc. Discusses various social media optimization (SMO) and social media marketing (SMM) topics, including recent posts describing traffic levels from social media sites, the future of “social retailing,” and an analysis of Facebook as an SMM outlet.

“Landing Pages for the Social Media Visitor?”

http://searchengineland.com/070522-140424.php

Article: “How About Landing Pages for the Social Media Visitor?” by Neil Patel of SearchEngineLand.com, discusses optimizing a website for social media visitors removing offensive on-page elements such as CPM advertisements, social media submission buttons, excessive navigation buttons and sponsored links.

“A Rebuttal to Neil Patel’s Article”

http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/010068.html

Article: “A Rebuttal to Neil Patel’s Social Media Landing Page Article,” by Jennifer Laycock of SearchEngineGuide.com, asserts that removing too many of a website’s on-page elements to please visitors from social media sites will add very little value for users while severely limiting a site’s conversion rate.

“Social Media Optimization” Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_optimization

Wikipedia entry for “Social Media Optimization.” Defines Social Media Optimization (SMO) as the process of optimizing a website to be more compatible with online communities by adding functionality such as RSS feeds and social media submission buttons. Also mentions the 17 “rules” of social media optimization developed by Rohit Bhargava, Jeremiah Owyang, Cameron Olthuis, Loren Baker, and Lee Odden.