April 18, 2007 21:00
Category: Blogging
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The 'in' thing in today's search marketing is social media optimization. Many people feel SEO or search engine optimization is no longer as important as social media optimization or SMO. Opinions vary, but perhaps it is early days yet for SMO to unseat SEO from the high pedestal it occupies.
Whichever way you look at it, the heart of search engine optimization has always been and is content and lots of it. It's the quality of content of a website that attracts visitors and then links from other sites.
The irrefutable support for this logic can be seen from the fact that virtually every online news sites are hugely successful. Obviously, search engines like endless stream of contents in these sites.
But words and sentences are not the only contents any longer. YouTube has shown that video contents too have great following. There is the odd feeling that YouTube's phenomenal success is the main reason behind the concept of social media optimization.
Orkut members seamlessly use videos from YouTube and Google Video that spiral the growth of links in short span of time. It's a similar scenario in other major social media sites as well.
This means social media optimization is more about enhancing linkability than creating pure content, and this is achieved by spreading links through social media sites.
Coming to making money from blog, readers will recall that in 2 previous articles, I've listed AdSense and content in that order at the top. 'Socializing' or social media optimization comes third in the pecking order.
While making money with AdSense is easily understood, it is a tad difficult to drive home the point of making money with content. Here now is an account of what are some ways to jumpstart social media optimization. Like content, social media optimization is also an indirect catalyst on the way to making money from website.
Tagging
If you've been running a blog, you'd know that one way to let the blog-world know your latest post is to tag it. According to Technorati, the largest blog-tracker, about 35% of all posts it tracks use tags as of February 2007 (..more). What is a tag? For elaborative explanation, refer Wikipedia.
A tag is a kind of descriptor that you use to categorize your post. This categorization may not essentially be a part of your blog categories. Rather it's a way to indicate blog-trackers that your post belongs to such and such category.
Tagging per se doesn't help unless Technorati knows about this. This can be done by 'pinging' Technorati (use Ping-o-Matic) each time you write a post. How does tagging help in social media optimization?
In his report, The State of The Live Web, 2007, David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati, says thus:
The explosive growth that we see in the Technorati index is mirrored in social media sites throughout the Web, including Flickr, YouTube, and the like. This shared phenomenon allows us to marry the wealth of information in our index with the wealth of that stored on social media sites across the Live Web through the shared construct of tags.
In case you're interested, here are the tags by popularity, as reported by Technorati.
Use Flickr, YouTube
Since social media optimization is all about building 'social connections', a good idea will be to build your own albums in social media sites like YouTube, Flickr and Google Video.
When you upload your photos and videos to these sites with tags attached, you're creating opportunity whereby visitors to those sites, after they search and find your piece, may feel inclined to visit your site.
Once again the ploy is to create and upload as much contents as possible armed with targeted tags to these highly popular social media sites.
Leave Comments
Every blog-owner craves for visitors' comments. This is obvious since blogs by nature are interactive, which means people like making comments and be commented upon.
Often, links from blog comments are given 'nofollow' attribute, thus rendering them useless in the eyes of search engines.
Yet, leaving comments is important from the viewpoint of social media optimization, because it helps you build up 'social' image of being an expert in your chosen field. After all, you need to be 'seen', don't you?
The same is true in case of online forums.
Create Controversy
People love controversy. The more there is hullabaloo, the more there will be hotfooted rush. Blog is an excellent platform to write controversial posts.
Of course, one needs loads of skill to make use of this technique properly. At the end of the day, all you want is some social recognition, not making your blog a taboo.
Yes, not many can qualify in this category. But there is no harm in trying your hand once a while, because this is a powerful means of social media optimization that can drive hordes of traffic to your blog.
Summing Up
There seems as yet no established norm of social media optimization other than what are mentioned above. But I've learnt to respect people's creativity, and their ability to devise ingenious ways and means to achieve results.
If you've more suggestions of making money with social media optimization, it'll be a pleasure to know them.
Related reading: Making money with content
