Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity and traffic through social media, online communities and community websites.

Search Engine Optimization takes at least 6 to 8 months to yield results. However, most of the business owners lack such great patience and look for quick results. Web 2.0 or Social Media Optimization is one such technique to get quick results.

SMO is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you quality links, attention and massive amount of traffic.

Those who ignore the efficacy of social media usually fall into three categories; the ones who don’t know much or anything about social media, the ones who are interested but don’t know how to use it and those who don’t believe in the value that a social media strategy can be effective for their website or business.

SMO tactics can drive huge amounts of people to a website and can also determine whether a startup, website or idea will make it or not. It involves driving traffic to a website through new channels because search engines aren’t the only sites that drive big traffic anymore. While it’s not taking over SEO yet, it has the potential to someday soon.

It’s natural. Not only do you get natural links without any discernible pattern, your website is exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion. This differs from paid advertising which has overt commercial overtones.
It’s defensible. Once successfully mastered, social communities can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines. While you can’t easily increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing.
Its low-cost/high returns. If done by SEO team, costs are limited to only time and perhaps the expenses involved in resources. The benefits will often exceed the cost. It would take you thousands of dollars to buy many links; social media has the ability to give you that for free.
It complements other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific. It doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic to your website. It can and will fit perfectly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines.