Over the past few years Social media optimization (SMO) has emerged as a powerful Internet marketing tool. With over 6 billion people connected to Internet and the popularity of Web 2.0 technologies, it becomes important for businesses to leverage the power of social media to establish their online presence.

Social media optimization is broadly categorized into two: social networking and social bookmarking.

Social networking groups are community membership sites. The members of a particular group share common interests and activities. The Web site provides the members with a common platform to exchange ideas, views, services, multimedia contents, events, etc., that fall within their interests. Leading social networking sites include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. The services offered by different sites differ; however, they focus on the common goal: to enable communication beyond the boundaries of conventional media.

The power of a social networking site lies in its ability to send messages to a whole lot of like-minded people instantly. The success of Twitter, the most popular microblogging site, substantiates the power of social media in Internet marketing. Twitter, which has over 100 million users worldwide, has reported a staggering 1382 percent year-over-year growth in 2009. The crispy ‘tweets’ are described as the ‘SMS of the Internet’ because it allows you to send small messages instantly to your followers. Email, instant messenger, chats, and now tweets – social media is evolving to accommodate the needs of users.

To accommodate the needs of the evolving Internet community, search engines are revisiting their Web site ranking criteria. Google, which used to index Web sites based on mere HTML texts, has restructured its search algorithm to include multiple content types including graphics, videos, flash contents, and of late, the tweets. For Web sites, this would mean a great opportunity to improve the page rank of their Web sites through these social media contents. It is important that you identify the appropriate social networking tool that enables you to communicate effectively with your target audience.

Social bookmarking refers to a process of locating, storing, and sharing bookmarks of Web pages on the Internet. The service allows a user to store their favourite content online instead of storing them on individual computers. Social bookmarking is done using meatdata used in the form of tag. When several users create such tags, it is called social tagging or folksonomy. Popular social bookmarking sites are www.del.icio.us (Delicious), digg.com, Yahoo! Buzz, Technorati.com, StumbleUpon.com, kaboodle.com and www.reddit.com.

Social bookmarking sites can be public or private. Public bookmarking allows its members to bookmark and share anything the members consider appropriate for bookmarking. Private bookmarking sites are designed for a specific category of people who want to share ideas within a specific network.

Social bookmarking sites are ideal platforms for online marketing campaigns such as affiliate networking. It allows a member to build a network of friends within a few days and get prospective links exchanged among them. Bookmarking sites allow users to post links back to their Web site, thus helping them generate more Web site traffic. Such sites generate millions of page views per month, so they provide businesses with an opportunity to share information about their products and services to niche customers.

Hiris Technologies, based in Sydney Australia, helps clients optimize their businesses and Web sites by offering customized Internet marketing solutions including social media optimization. Our services include, but not limited to, blogging, viral marketing, and social media management including Facebook and Twitter.

Feel free to contact us to know more about our social media optimization services.