Call me old-fashioned, if you like but I still maintain that SEO, which is popularly known as Search Engine Optimization is identified by me as Search Engine Marketing. Similarly, SMO which is an acronym for Social Media Optimization is known to me as Social Media Marketing. In short, both the brothers deal in online marketing strategies. But then, there is a big difference between the two. While the elder brother SEO targets on search engines (through effective content) providing higher ranking, thus making the website more visible, SMO targets on hundreds of social media users who can share the content, thus paving the way to an immensely larger market share. Nevertheless, both are relevant for online marketing, even though SMO has, in the interim, stolen a march over SEO, in terms of optimization, on account of the following key ingredients.

>> Content quality – Similar to SEO, quality content is considered as the most important factor in social media optimization. In other words, better the quality of the content, higher will be its sharing value. It is as simple as that.

>> Sharing buttons – Social sharing buttons are no doubt the most ingenious tools for SMO. Inserting buttons in areas where visitors are likely to click and share can surely boost distribution of the content in a big way.

>> Rendezvous – Rendezvous with content – inviting people to open a dialogue or  a debate forms yet another part of SMO strategy. This could also include asking for comments or presenting a poll. In short, getting visitors to respond to comments invariably has a viral effect.

>> Sharing your Content – Sharing your content extensively in social media channels is also considered as a key issue in most SMO strategies. The more number of channels the content is sent to, the more likely it would be viewed and shared by people who hasn’t visited your website to view it there.

>>Bottom Line – Despite some of the differences between SEO and SMO, these are, as a matter of fact, complimentary to each other in many respects. Studies have revealed that search engines are now verily leveraging the recommendations of users of social networks that include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc to rank pages in the SERPs. This surely indicates that when a webpage is shared or “Liked” by any user on a social network, it is counted as a ‘vote’ for that webpage’s intrinsic value or quality. Acting on this cue, search engines can jolly well use these votes to appropriately rank websites in the SERPs. What is more, since it is almost impossible to influence the search engines when they follow this track, search engines are relying more on this form of social search. This, along with greater number of personalized search based on interests and location has appreciably increased the significance of social media in contemporary Search Engine Optimization.