• Your company comes up early in search engine results,
• You’re mentioned or recommended by another person or website they visit, or
• They already know about your company and go looking for you

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies with the broad goal of bringing more people to your website the first way by improving your search engine rankings. Social media optimization (SMO) can be one part of SEO—but it also contributes to all three ways people find you online.

 What is Social Media Optimization?

SMO in digital marketing has to do with social networks and their growing importance to the business. This aspect of optimization deals with enhancing your company’s presence and online reputation through interactive communities—not just Facebook and Twitter, but also blogs, forums, and anywhere your business is mentioned or linked to socially.

Working with SMO can help you strengthen your brand and boost visibility, as well as generate leads and increase sales. Optimizing your social media builds both familiarity with and trust for your business because consumers will see you not only mentioned but recommended by others.

What SMO is Not

If you’re looking to improve your SMO in digital marketing, it’s essential to keep in mind that having huge numbers of links to your website scattered across social networks is not optimization. Joining every Facebook industry page, Google+ Community, and a LinkedIn group to seed links to your content is counterproductive to both SMO and SEO.

Social shares carry a lot more weight when they’re coming from someone else. Also, indiscriminate link-spreading without engagement and participation will get you unfollowed in your social networks—which in turn drives down your authority.

To improve SMO for your small business, you should focus on engaging with relevant social audiences, contributing to conversations, and posting your shares of authoritative content for your industry.

Google Hummingbird: Why You Need SMO

In the last month or so, Google quietly launched a major overhaul of its search algorithm. Dubbed Hummingbird because of its speed and precision, the new algorithm changes the way Google interprets search terms—and shifts the weight of some factors that drive search rankings.

Social shares are more important in calculating rankings now, and they’re apt to contribute even more shortly. The Hummingbird algorithm values quality content that is relevant, authoritative, and shareable. So the more your content has been shared across social media, the higher its perceived quality—and the better you’ll rank on Google.