Difference between Social Media Optimization and Marketing
Does your business have a blog, Facebook page and a Twitter account? Are you always answering questions while visiting online communities? If so, you are likely taking advantage of social media to get your brand out to the world. Undoubtedly, terms like social media marketing or social media optimization have come up when researching the most effective strategies to build a brand, but you may be wondering what those terms mean.
The difference between social media marketing (SMM) and social media optimization (SMO) is quite simple. Social media marketing is geared toward interacting with potential readers and customers while social media optimization is all about building your reputation around the content of your site. Because you want people to see you as a valuable, respectable resource, both social media marketing and optimization are extremely important.
Customer interaction is key. Of course, there are many things to consider when talking about interaction, especially when factoring in the likes of Facebook, Twitter and even the new kid on the block, Pinterest. Anyone who has ever been on these three sites may have noticed how they are different. Facebook walls change rapidly with a wall of pictures, links and status updates waiting to be liked. Tweets are a succinct 140 characters long, which can be marked as a favorite or retweeted for your own followers to see. Pinterest seems to take the old age “a picture is worth a thousand words” to a whole new level. If you find one that you liked, you may even be inclined to keep browsing the particular blog to find more, which converts you into a subscribed reader. It is social media marketing using a website for well-planned optimization. Social media can be a great tool. If it is used properly can grow your business effectively.
Social media trends seem to change as quickly as the weather these days. As quickly as people migrate to one site, they can move on to the next, so it is imperative that your content is easily shareable across multiple networking sites and easily digested by potential readers and customers. That is essentially the goal—people are the reason that social media exists; their business is your business. The more people who try your product, read your posts or visit your store, the bigger the number of advocates you have. And because social media is the new word-word-of-mouth advertising, you can bet people are going to tell others about the experience—sometimes, at the very moment they are experiencing it. If you want recognition, social media can work for you.