Before you can put any of these tips to use, you may want to understand a little more about the differences between Social Media Marketing and Social Media Optimisation.
SMM = Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is strategically using the big social sites to spread your brand name or drive traffic back to your web presence.
SMO = Social Media Optimisation
Social Media Optimisation is adding key elements to your websites or content that make them easy to spread across the big social sites.
1. Increase your Linkability
Linkability is the willingness of other websites or articles to link back to your site. One way to increase your natural Google listing is to increase how many authority sites link to you, so to increase your linkability with social media optimisation is to make your site more informative and useful to others. You can do this in many ways; blog, white papers, press releases, keyword targeted articles, RSS feeds, etc. This is the most important step in Social Media Optimisation and should be your first priority.
2. Participate
With Social Media Optimisation you can participate by joining on the conversation about your topic (or targeted keyword). Simply posting articles and sharing content isn't going to keep the buzz going. You should continue to share information on other websites. This participation will share your knowledge with more people. One way to do this is to find people that are blogging on your topic and to give input on the conversation. Also, participate in forums or other social groups that are discussing your topic. Read comments on your articles, videos, and audios and respond to them.
3. Know how to target your audience
Social media marketing is about sharing content/information. Not everyone is interested in your topic, so be sure to do your marketing research and post your information and knowledge where it will be understood and appreciated. Have them coming back for more useful content. If this happens, then you know that your social media optimisation is successful.
4. Help your content travel
Social media optimisation focuses on providing useful content to your market. When you publish content such as an article, video, or audio file you must help it reach as many people on the web as possible. You can do this by submitting to relevant high traffic websites. When the word gets out about your great content (no matter what format) you'll receive backlinks to your site.
5. Encourage the mashup
To mash up is to use two websites content and mash them together. For example, Youtube makes it easy to mash their content (videos) onto your site. In addition, because it is so easy you have added a video to your site that has a Youtube logo on the video as well as a link back to you tube. So to encourage a mashup with social media optimisation is to make it easy for other websites to use your content and reference it to drive traffic back to your site.