What Is SMO? Social Media Optimization

SMO or Social Media Optimization Is like SEO To Search Engine Optimization!

 Social Media Optimization or SMO' 'is a new term that has been gaining life of its own. It is similar to the SEO. The SMO tactics can generate large amounts of visits to a website and you can also determine if a new company, website, or an idea is viable or not. SMO is all about using your social media channels to drive direct traffic to a website or a blog because after all search engines are not the only way to get more web traffic. While it is not a substitute to SEO, we all have to admit that social media optimization has the potential to someday achieve and even exceed in importance. We must therefore be prepared.

Social Media

'Social media' is a buzzword. But, what does it really mean? According to the definition of Wikipedia, Social Media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they "create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks."

Social media can take many different forms, including texts, images, audio and video. Social media includes blogs, forums, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs. In addition, the means of social communication can be considered any medium that can help build a community. The dissemination of messages through blog posting also fits. Social Media Optimization does not have to be something difficult, it is doing something easy and simple like staying in touch with friends, clients and contacts through your social media channels.

 The Basis Of SMO

Unlike SEO where most people do the impossible to stay on top of the SERPS, we must not force our SMO efforts. Social media is not a search engine, it's all about real people so when optimizing your social media try to avoid spamming at all costs. This is not about taking your marketing message to someone else but instead making others to do this for you.

Gone are the days when one had to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a small billboard around the corner. Social Media is FREE and is a completely different approach. There are hundreds of apps and hundreds of tools that we can use to measure our web analytics, we can also track the traffic that is generated using our different social media channels and even measure the ROI we get from our social media campaigns. Social Media optimization (SMO) enables anyone or any business to position their brand in the correct customer environment.


Begin to optimize your business social media accounts today. SocialMediaCombo.net offers great SMO for all your business needs. Social media optimization is a new way that you need to start to work on today!

Some of the websites dedicated to offer social media optimization services where we have had positive results are:

• Cheap Social Media Marketing

• Social Media Optimization Services

This is a Guest Post:
Author: Susan Soltrelly

7 Easy Ways To Get More Facebook Likes For Your Business Fanpage

Easy ways to get more Facebook Likes

In 2011 Quantcast estimated that Facebook had approximately 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors only, and as of September 2012, Facebook already had over one billion active users worldwide. In this post we will write about some easy ways to get more Facebook likes for your business fanpage.

 We've already written about ways of getting more likes to your Facebook page and the importance of Facebook likes and how you can make a product more consumer friendly, however, the fact that a consumer has declared fan of your brand on Facebook does not necessarily mean that he or she will buy  everything you offer, according to the author of "Facebook Marketing All-In -One for Dummies", Amy Porterfield, brands need to produce "Super Fans".

According to what the social media expert said in Mashable, this type of "Super Fans" are those who buy almost everything you offer them, they are also able to withstand the criticism of your brand and will be the first ones to defend your business or company during a public relations crisis.

 

 Simple and effective ways to get more fans on Facebook:
 Though I may not be a Facebook rock star with a million likes on our Facebook page, I’m having some success with my social media page, at least in terms of interaction and bringing traffic to my site. Here’s what seems to be working for me:

1. Make your page 75% visual: Do you have a Youtube channel? If not, get one asap. Share your Youtube videos to your Facebook page and if you have images, share them as well. It's a well known fact that humans are attracted to the visual and will stay longer if you provide them something worthy to look at. But again, post the appropriate ones. This is business, baby! 
2. Involve bloggers: Each campaign of Social Media Marketing should include relevant bloggers linked to your niche. Find top notch people in your niche, and maintain contact with them to establish a relationship, this strategy may bring wells of advantages for your brand. After you find some active bloggers, don't miss out on the track and encourage them to get involved in your community. 
3. Reward your Superfans:  You can give free coupons, free subscription to your e-book or newsletters to those loyal fans who’ve encouraged their friends to "Like your Fan Page" and become your fan. You can also reward them as “Fan of the Week”
4. Optimize your presence for mobile: Did you know close to 70% of people visit Facebook on mobile devices? And recently Facebook made it easier to Like a page directly from mobile device. So, to attract your growing mobile fan base, think about frequent, lightweight posts designed to engage and encourage connection. This includes quick polls, yes/no questions, and colorful, easy to view images.
5.  Join relevant groups & participate: When you do a search on Facebook, the search will come back with all relevant pages, apps, groups, people and places. Finding out what groups (both public and private) that exist in your niche is important because you want to join as many as                 possible. If the group is private, send a message to the administrator to nicely introduce yourself and ask about the possibility of joining the group. Once you've joined one or more groups in your niche, be sure to take the time to participate. Now that you can directly connect with your audience, it is time to do it! This does NOT mean that you jump into the conversation with a sales pitch. Nor, should you ask them to join your list. Instead, make your goal to be to be helpful and start relationships. Gain their trust, first. Remember, you must be a follower before you can be a leader. 
6. Push all social channels back to Facebook: Everything you do online through social media should always be cross platform and I would always try and push as many people to Facebook as possible from either Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or other social profiles that you have. I wouldn’t just be asking them to like your page either but instead provide compelling content (video, photos etc) that is only available on Facebook for example. "Bottom Line" Give people a reason to cross over to Facebook and like you.
7. Know your Fans: Keep the conversation and happenings inviting to your fan demographic. Make it fun for and interesting for them and not necessarily interesting to you. Keep them around or lose them forever. More fan clicks drive more inbound links, which drive search engine optimization.
   

Use what works best for you and your brand. Know your brand, understand the demographic and get creative.

Other Related Posts: 

• Easy Ways To Increase Your Facebook Likes
• How To Get Your First 1000 Facebook Likes For Your FacebookPage
• 5 Easy Ways To Increase Your Facebook Likes | Get More Likes On Facebook
• Advantages And Benefits Of Having A Facebook Fan Page For Your Internet Business
• 6 Places Where You Can Buy Facebook Likes (Reviews...

 I know there are many more easy ways to get more Facebook likes for your business Fanpage and many other ways to engage folks on your page- contests, surveys, offering a  “like” for a latte contest. What else?  Share yours and hey! “Like Us” on Facebook!  And while you’re there, roam around a little.  It’s not all about the ‘like’.

How to make money from Twitter

There are many ways of making money via Twitter. Most people can manage to make a few bucks every month, however, to get the big Twitter money, you have to have a big audience, with a lot of active followers. However, I wanted to share with you the ways I make money on Twitter, since most people really have no clue that Twitter influence is money.

Logotype of ChaCha Affiliates

ChaCha Affiliates has 1000's of funny, interesting and creative photo albums, quizzes and other kinds of content that your audience most likely will find engaging from their own website www.chacha.com. You get paid for every click you get on the links you share from your Twitter account, and they pay once every month (the 7th every month). I really like their content, and it's easy to contact them with requests of creating a special kind of content which you can promote. Sometimes ChaCha Affiliates also has big companies to promote on their affiliate program, the last 3 months they have worked with AOL.

Copyright: www.mylikes.com

Mylikes is also a Twitter affiliate advertising network where you can find a lot of different content from many advertisers. Also a pay-per-click network, where you get paid for every visitors you manage to get to a special site. I believe Mylikes is great a few weeks every month, but I also believe that their best advertisers comes and go -- sometimes I think there's not a lot of good content at all. I am very strictly with what I advertise -- but when Mylikes has good content, then Mylikes is amazing -- especially since they pay once every 7 days!

Logotype of TwtMob

TwtMob is also one of my favorite networks, I definitely recommend TwtMob for every big Twitter account holder with an audience of over 50,000 followers. TwtMob is basically the network to promote the big brands on Twitter. Last 6 months, I've promoted Samsung, Universal Studios, Microsoft, 7UP, Nike, Disney, EA Sports and Red Bull through this sponsored tweets network. TwtMob has a given rate of the paid tweets and does not go after the numbers of clicks you get, they basically judge your presence and social media influence and estimate a good rate for your sponsored tweet. Mostly, their assessments in the fixed price is very accurate. TwtMob pays once every month.

Logotype of BuySellAds.com

BuySellAds is not a pure sponsored tweets network since they have more focus on banner ads on websites, however, I like BuySellAds. They do have some good ads, not very often, but at least a few times per year. You will set your rates and then you will get advertisers giving you ads a few times per year, where you can either approve or deny the sponsored tweets. Don't forget that BuySellAds charges a fee of 20% -- so set the rates 20% higher than what you really want. (20% is not a lot of fees, the networks above are most likely charging a higher fee)

Logotype of Sponsored Tweets

Sponsored Tweets is not my favorite paid for tweets network and I haven't heard many people who are still using it. Actually, it was a very big page for buying tweets prior to 2010. Not sure what happened, and I haven't seen a lot of people who are still using it, but maybe it can be good to also check out if you've got too much time.

Logotype of Pay4Tweet

Pay4Tweet is a network I do not like. You set your rates of how much your Twitter account will charge per ad, and then you hope for the best that someone will buy a sponsored tweet from you... without tweeting something too bad. You can only set the rates of your sponsored tweets, but you can not approve or deny the tweet -- it will just be tweeted right after it's paid. That is not the reason why I don't like this affiliate network, it's because I have been scammed four times from Pay4Tweet. I have done four tweets without being paid. Since the Pay4Tweet team did not want to help me and barely replies to emails, I have nothing to say other than, be very careful with using Pay4Tweet.

Logotype of Opiniads

OpiniAds is a network that had a very good start the first 2 weeks they launched their program, however, that was 1,5 years ago. Three weeks after, they shut down their affiliate network and did not reply to any mails in 6 months. There was a lot of people who didn't get paid at all and they just ignored the emails. However, they came back 6 months later by stating that it's a better affiliate program than ever. Actually, I like their network right now, and it's pretty safe since they pay once every 24 hours to your PayPal account. It's something I recommend if you want to make money very quick.

These are the most official ways to make Twitter through Twitter. Most of them are very easy, all you have to do is to be creative and understand the different purposes with the sponsored messages of these sites and have a PayPal account. There are more unofficial ways to reach the Twitter money; selling retweets, selling shoutouts and creating a website with ads on the website (for example Google AdSense ads or other affiliate network ads) and then tweet your website on Twitter. 

That's all for today, thanks!

Anton Perlkvist, The Twitter Entrepreneur

TWITTER.COM/FUN

How To Get Your First 1000 Facebook Likes For Your FacebookPage

 Now what? How do I get 1000 Facebook likes?

One of the main challenges faced by small businesses that want to have a presence in Facebook is the famous "and now what?". The famous, "And now what?" is kind of an immediate self question that almost everyone who has created a Facebook page comes up with, immediately after creating a business Facebook page (unless you've had a budget to contract a specialized social media agency).

  As an a main administrator on your page we very much guess that you literally followed all the steps to get your business page online and all of sudden you have all these doubts: What can i do?, What should I say?, How do I get 1000 Facebook likes for my page? Even well experienced internet marketers have trouble sometimes.

It is known that the beginnings of gathering "likes" are hard, so with a totally practical approach and based on our experience, we will offer you a small and easy to understand guide with steps that will help you get a critical mass of likes on Facebook, let's say were going to get 1000 Facebook likes to round up the numbers.

1- Create a quality image:

Before sharing your new business Facebook fan page with your contacts make sure you have good cover photo and a profile picture. And Yes, keep your images consistent with your corporate or products images. Either if its a logo or an image that represents your products or services, it is very important that images have a good resolution and are adapted to sizes predetermined by Facebook : the cover photo is of 851 × 315 pixels and the profile: 160 × 160 pixels. Images blurry or colors that don't match can give a bad image of your page.

2- Share it with family and friends:

For the first round of "likes" our recommendation is to go to your closest circle which is your family and friends. By the time you have put together a Facebook business page, your friends and family had already been aware of all the hard work you put into your real business and they undoubtedly like it. Send them e-mails with a link to the page or directly invite them using the "invite friends" button  located in the administrative panel of your page.

3- Give personality to your page:

The first impression of your Facebook business page is your logo and personal image. Give personality to your page with a profile image that gives a personal touch to your page. For example, if you're a hotel, share images and recipes of the chef, beauty tips from the spa maids, etc. Don't limit yourself to share news, videos or photographs that you've seen on other websites/blogs. The easiest way to personalize your page is creating your own content.

 4- Link your Facebook page with other promotional materials:

Don't forget to link to your Facebook fan page from your website and from the newsletter that you send to your customers. You can also incorporate the link of your FB fan page in the signature of all your e-mails. If you have business cards, brochures, posters, etc. put the link to your Facebook page there as well. An effective alternative is to create a QR code that scanned takes the person directly to your page. QR codes are ideal for packaging if you sell a physical product or "Menu" if your business is a restaurant.

5- Connect with your fans and get new fans with special promotions:

Once your family members, friends, contacts and customers already "liked" your page the process of acquisition of new likes & fans becomes slower. To keep a steady rising of your "likes" and accelerate the growth of your FB business fan page we recommend a strategy that's as old as 'commerce' itself, i.e., Offer 'FREE' trials, give out coupon codes, Free stuff to download, use promotional campaigns to speak about your business, etc...  This way you're offering a direct incentive to people making easier for everyone to like and become a fan of your page.


6 Use Facebook Ads:

You don't have to count with a multinational company budget to promote your business with Facebook ads. With only spending $5 to $10 dollars a day one can can get good results since you only pay for the clicks you receive on your ad. The biggest benefit of Facebook ads is the segmentation that offers by location, age, gender and interests.

The next step would be to take care of your existing fans and continue to grow your business Facebook page. Our recommendation in this case is that if you don't have the necessary time to dedicate to your FB fan page delegate or outsource its management to a professional social media services company. These professional services will help you get 1000 Facebook likes quick and safe in a totally new level.

Should you know about any other easy and practical ways to get 1000 Facebook likes quick please go ahead and share it with us in the comments.. (No Spamming)

& Follow us on Twitter @addfollowers_us

The Twitter Tools to determine influence on Twitter

A lot of people comes to me asking how to determine the power/reach/influence of a Twitter account. I've been myself struggling a lot to investigate some Twitter accounts. There's a few favorite Twitter tools that I've been a dedicated user of in the last 12 months. Reasons are simple, these Twitter tools are amazing at what they do, in their own way.

Logotype of Klout

To begin with, klout.com - The Standard of Influence - is probably the only Twitter tool that you can use alone if you only want to use one single Twitter tool to find out how powerful and influencing a Twitter account is. The Klout will determine every single Twitter account with a Klout score of 1-100, where 100 is the perfect Klout score, meaning, the most influencing account. Why I love the Klout score is simply because, it doesn't only measure how many followers a Twitter account has, how much it grows, how many retweets you get, how many mentions and FAVs you get -- It measures who the followers is, who is the retweeter and who is mentioning you. If Bill Gates follows and retweets you, then you are much more influencing than if 10 random nobodys retweets and follows you. Klout is measuring how influencing your audience is and how influencing you are towards them. Amazing site!

Screenshot from www.twittercounter.com comparing @Know @GoogleFacts and @SciencePorn

The second Twitter tool that I really want to recommend about influence is Twitter Counter. That's an amazing way of looking through the follower growth in the last 3 months! I however pay for the premium version and can check every single Twitter account's history in the last 6 months. Why is this interesting? As the statistics nerd that I am, I love to investigate Twitter accounts. If a Twitter account is growing 50,000 followers in 10 day or in 100 days, that's an amazing difference in power, reach and influence (if the followers are all real of course). The faster someone gained followers, the most likely, the more powerful they are.

Also, Twitter counter is great for measuring what's been awesome days on Twitter and what's not. After looking through the statistics on Twitter, I've noticed that most Twitter accounts are growing more Twitter followers on Sundays than Tuesdays, and Thursdays are more likely a good growing day than Fridays. You can also see how many tweets you've posted and how much you grew different depending on how many post you posted, how many followers you will have in 100 days if it's growing like it's currently growing on average and much more.

Screenshot from www.statweestics.com

The third Twitter tool that I enjoy a lot is Statweestics. This is a Twitter tool to take a closer look of Twitter statistics. It's live and old history updates of the hottest hashtags, users, words and locations. Very interesting.

Screenshot from Topsy Analytics

The forth Twitter tool is Topsy, and it definitely deserves a place in the list. Topsy has two parts of the site that I love about it, the regular Topsy site, and the Topsy Analytics site. The picture above is from the analytics site, where you can count all the mentions to a Twitter account for every day. I mean, the more mentions a Twitter account gets, the more influencing it ought to be -- if they tweet as many tweets.

The other part of Topsy is that you can search for a Twitter username and you can find the most retweeted/replied tweets that a Twitter account has received. Meaning, here's a way to find out if celebrities and similar things have mentioned you!

Logotype of Status People

Another site that I also enjoy to use sometimes for some accounts that I feel are a little bit mystery, is Status People. Here's a way to easily check out how many fake, inactive and very active followers every account on Twitter has. Very useful if you doubt an account out there and easily want to find out if the followers are real or not. The only bad part about this is that it's only the last 10,000 followers! Still an amazing good tool though.

Facebook Revealed Its Mystery And Presented "Graph Search" A New Search Engine

Ever since we read about a new search engine by Facebook back on September, and which their engineers had been working on we were quite intrigued. It wasn't until early this week that Facebook revealed its mystery and presented "Graph Search" a new search engine.

But what exactly is Facebook Graph Search? 
Facebook's new 'Graph Search is a search engine which works in the 'exploration of new connections'. For example, one can be able to contact an unknown person taking only as a reference a mutual friend or a party picture.

It relies heavily on “Likes” and other connections to determine what to show as the most relevant search results for each user. It also offers what you might think of as search filters — the ability to search based on the vast user data that Facebook has in its system (or “graph,” as they like to say).

Graph Search and web search are very different. Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: “hip hop”) and provide the best possible results that match those keywords. With Graph Search you combine phrases (for example: “my friends in New York who like Jay-Z”) to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that’s been shared on Facebook. We believe they have very different uses.

For now, Facebook Graph Search will only include people, photos, places and interests — posts and other interests (like song listens) are in the works.

 Search results will be personalized, although Facebook says that more generic queries should produce fairly common results for most people. And Facebook has stressed that search results won’t reveal anything that was previously kept private; you’ll only be able to search for content that’s been shared with you.
Facebook Graph Search will be more valuable to active Facebook users — those who’ve actively Liked businesses and pages, artists and movies, and so forth.
 
As you can see, it's a cool way to search Facebook that takes advantage of the fact that Facebook is a big structured database. And if you're looking for pictures that people have uploaded to Facebook (and made public), or friends who went to a particular school or live in a particular place, or potential mates, it seems quite useful.

The service is in beta now, with only a few hundred people gaining access Tuesday. Facebook will be using results from those initial users to help tweak the service, before it pushes it out to the whole of the Facebook community.

Watch the video above and tell us what sorts of searches would you like to be able to do on Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

Related Post: Here's All You Need To Know About Search Graph

Just a random Twitter coffee

Just a friendly reminder -- Here's a good combination -- I love coffee and Twitter.