Marketing TV Brands with Social Media Optimization

You've probably heard of SEO, search engine optimization, but there is a new term you should be familiar with, SMO, which stands for social media optimization.  SEO is the science of influencing search engine results from the big services like Google.  SMO is the science of generating on-line buzz. It is about optimizing a website so it can be more social media friendly.  Sites that use SMO make it easy for readers to pass along their favorites to friends and coworkers.  It is the sophisticated science of understanding how readers adopt, personalize and share web content.

This is more than just putting "e-mail to a friend" links on the website. SMO sites offer readers sophisticated tools that let them easily communicate with as many other sites as possible. One site becomes a tacit social media partner allowing both to tap the other's fans.

SMO has really caught on with the traditional search marketing community.  Google is a fairly recent phenomenon and in the past ten years, SEO specialists have primarily focused on the algorithm mechanics of search.  It has been more about math than psychology. 

Great social media techniques will not necessarily affect your search engine ranking, but it can drastically increase site engagement.  These days, it is becoming increasingly hard to compete using just search engine optimization. Social media optimization is becoming increasingly important because it gives small companies a chance to compete with the big boys through the sheer art of buzz.  The little guys can't compete with big company search engine algorithms, but they sure can get some attention by sparking vast amounts of gab about their products.

SEO specialists know that a personal referral holds much more weight than a bot's recommendation, and they are trying hard to integrate these relationship drivers into their tactics.  Part of the problem is that the metrics for social media have yet to be worked out.  Facebook is an environment where friends and family have meaningful interaction with the most important people in their lives.  It just makes sense that a click here is worth more than a click on some other random web site.  But we have yet to figure out how to measure this kind of engagement.

Right now we live in a world of page views, uniques, and time spent on site.  But how do you quantify buzz? How do you place a value on a casual but highly trusted referral comment left by a friend?  There are a tremendous number of social media conversations about our products that have yet to find a metric that assesses their true value. There are some real gems but we just haven't found a way to measure them.

Social media optimization is about passing content along, and a unique connection with customers that goes beyond just product features. Companies that rely heavily on social media build a community and a team of brand ambassadors who truly believe in their product.  For these fans, it isn't just a product, they incorporate the brand into their own identity.  These groupies are willing to share their beliefs with other people. More importantly, they carry their message to the nether regions of the internet where traditional advertisers might never venture.  They recruit new fans in places you'd never expect. 

Apple is a great example of this. Any time a new product is even rumored, entire sites spring up that are dedicated to guessing what is coming.  Devotees actually mock up designs with their best guess about the new Apple products. These are people with a passion. They have made a personal connection with Apple and they evangelize on the web.  For them, Apple isn't a computer company -  it's a lifestyle and a part of their own personal identity.  Carrying that Iphone is as much about making calls as it is about making an identity statement.  Apple isn't the only company with this kind of social media prowess - it has just mastered it.

One of the most powerful developments about social media is the way it is making gains against traditional search engine optimization.  When Google first launched, most of us would put in our search and feel confident the top 10 results would be the most relevant.  Well now search engine optimization has become a science in and of itself, and is seen as somewhat of a black art.  Now, through some clever manipulation techniques, marketers have gotten better and better at moving their meaningless products up Google's results list.  Our trust in Google is not what it used to be. These days, I'm not as sure that Google's top 10 will be my top 10.

Because of this, social media is melding with search engine optimization to create a whole new hybrid search/social category.  This list has been prequalified by both the search algorithms and by real people who are experts in a particular subject.  It provides two complimentary models for tackling a search. 

For example, let's say I'm a passionate hiking enthusiast.  Because I love it so much, I've gone through the Google search list and looked at all the great hiking sites on the web. I've created my own blog with the very best hiking resources I've found over the past three years.  I start developing a community of fellow hiking lovers.  Now, someone who's new to this category will go to Google and find my blog near the top of the list.  Instead of exploring further down the Google list, they might rely on my judgment to show them the very best of the hiking world.  They might see my blog’s vibrant commenting and the passionate love of the sport, and join the community.  They will probably have a greater sense of trust in this community than Google's impersonal algorithm.  So now I am filtering hiking material for someone else and someone else is using this information with a greater sense of trust.

This is the mindset behind sites like Delicious.  People have a great trust in the passionate, yet anonymous, human beings who tag the content and give all of us guidance.  Delicious is often used in tandem with the search engine mechanical model.

It's also the concept behind Wikipedia. The real human filter is the new rock star of search.  A lot of the big search engines are starting to take notice.  Google has initiatives using real people to organize content rather than just computers. Yahoo is doing the same thing. In the coming years we're going to see this take off, as people start to rely on others to help them make on-line choices.  This means marketing disciplines like social media optimization will become more and more important.

So how do you get in on the social media optimization game?  The first step is a change in thinking about how people find your product.  Most marketing managers grew up using the traditional advertising model.  You buy mass media, zillions of people watch your ads, and make their decisions based on these materials.  Social media advertising is a communal experience where cause and effect are much less tangible.  The goal is not to enroll everyone, but to enroll fans who will be brand ambassadors and spread the word on their own. 

Most of us still rely on the traditional mass produced brand communication.  We use terms that speak of gross impressions, not individual engagement. "Gross rating points," "page views," and "mean time spent viewing" are all measurement terms that treat audiences like they are sheep - a mass herd to be swayed through one-way communication of a cookie cutter marketing message.  We're accustomed to the concept of "broadcasting."  Well there is absolutely nothing "broad" about social media. It is the quintessential one-to-one experience.  It requires intensive communication with a core group of product evangelists, not an auditorium-like announcement of product attributes.

Social media optimization truly is viral - and you want to spread your marketing message just like a flu bug, one person to the next, without the need for supervision. You do not have enough money, time or patience to talk to everyone, so you must enroll your own brand army to spread the word down the line. Most importantly, this requires a looser hold on the brand reins.  Everyone in the company must learn to let go and be comfortable with the branding ending up in the most unexpected places.  Just like Apple, you must foster a brand epidemic.   If you have built the brand's foundations on solid core emotional motivators, it will weather the trip just fine, and enroll a whole new group you never expected to find.

Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist.  His teasing seminars immediately raise news ratings, and he guarantees you will get results or his workshop is free.  Find out more here. He can be reached at  gnewell@602communications.com