16 Rules For Social Media Optimization Revisited

1. Increase Your Linkability

This is the first and most important priority for websites. Many sites are “static” – meaning they are rarely updated and used simply for a storefront. To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the link ability of the content. Adding a blog is a great step, however there are many other ways such as creating white papers and thought pieces, or even simply aggregating content that exists elsewhere into a useful format.

2. Make Tagging and Bookmarking Easy

Adding content features like quick buttons to “add to del.icio.us” are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier, but we go beyond this, making sure pages include a list of relevant tags, suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site), and making sure to tag our pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).

3. Reward Inbound Links

Often used as a barometer for success of a blog (as well as a website), inbound links are paramount to rising in search results and overall rankings. To encourage more of them, we need to make it easy and provide clear rewards. From using Permalinks to recreating Similarly, listing recent linking blogs on your site provides the reward of visibility for those who link to you

4. Help Your Content Travel

Unlike much of SEO, SMO is not just about making changes to a site. When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.

5. Encourage the Mashup

In a world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content (within reason). YouTube’s idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can embed videos from their site has fueled their growth. Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.

6. Be a User Resource, Even if it Doesn’t Help You

Add value to users, including outbound links to areas that could help them with their goals and purposes. Deployed corrected, even if you link to competitors you stand to gain as the communities first source of information finding. How will this help SMO? Folks will link to your social site and tag is as helpful or the ‘ultimate’ guide in that space. As this adds up, it will become more and more relevant in search engine results.

7. Reward Helpful and Valuable Users

Often helpful or popular users will be influencers and champions within your social site, devise ways to elevate them by promoting their works on the homepage, or develop a rating system. Sometimes a quick email or note in private telling them you appreciate them can go a long way. Some folks have done that to me, and for communities I run, I do that as well. Only do if sincere. Perhaps this is not truly SMO, but it will help to keep the most valuable members of a community closer to your site.

8. Participate

Join the conversation. Social Media is a two way street, lets not forget that. By conversing with the community you are creating awareness and prolonging your buzz. You are keeping it going and this often results in a snowball effect. Participating helps your message spread further and faster.

9. Know How to Target Your Audience

If you don’t even know your target audience you are in trouble. I would love to have everyone using my product too, but you need to be realistic. There is always going to be a certain audience you can appeal to and others that you can’t. So know your appeal and who it is appealing to.

10. Create Content

There are certain kinds of content that just naturally spread socially. It does not matter what industry you are in and what boring products you sell, there is always some kind of content that can be created that will work. Whether it is creating widgets, making people laugh, or writing a white paper, it can be done. Know what type of content can work for you and create it.

11. Be Real

The community does not reward fakers.

12. Don’t Forget Your Roots, Be Humble

Sometimes it can be easy to get carried away being a BlogStar or industry talking head. Remember those who helped you along the way, and that respect will help all involved.

13. Don’t Be Afraid to Try New Things, Stay Fresh

Social Media is changing and morphing by the minute, keep up on new tools, products and challenges in your social sphere.

14. Develop a SMO Strategy

Define your objectives and set goals. Be fully aware of what your desired outcome is as a result of performing these tactics. Reputation, sales, influence, credibility, charity, traffic/page views, etc.

15. Choose Your SMO Tactics Wisely

Choose your SMO tactics wisely. Be cognizant of what actions will influence the desired outcome with the most impact.

16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

Make SMO part of your process and best practices. As with good SEO, SMO tactics should become part of your organization’s best practices. Find ways to incorporate SMO tactics at the “template” level of document creation and as part of information distribution. Minor things like encouraging social bookmarks and rewarding incoming links as a standard practice across the organization can go a long way.

Wrapping up

After thinking through these 16 rules, my sense is as a whole they hold up well. While the packaging of social media may be in a constant state of flux the core rules of digital communication do not change as tools/trends change. The reality is text is still king of the web and we’ve been socializing this way since the days of message boards and forums in the 90′s.
Good marketing itself is not about the platform, it’s about the idea. The platform is merely an enabler, but to utilize it effectively comprehension is vital. With social media gaining popularity daily it is necessary for marketing professionals and businesses alike to comprehend this dynamic communication enviornment. And the only true way to accomplish this is to become involved yourself.