When it comes to social media, two factors drive success: Social Media Optimization (SMO) and engagement. Often time’s these two are confused with one another. Though they’re related, they address completely different fields within the social media sphere. So what is SMO, what is engagement and how are they different?
What Is Social Media Optimization?
Social media optimization is the more quantitative side of the social media equation. It’s what allows marketers to tackle social media systematically and scientifically. Let’s say you’re trying to get a certain fan page to go viral. One way you can measure this in SMO terms is through what percentage of people repost your posts. So if you post something on your wall and it’s “shared” by 1.5% of your fans, that gives you a benchmark metric to measure against. If you track this number whenever you post status updates, you can very quickly start to get a sense for what kinds of things get passed along and what kinds of things don’t.
This is just one example of SMO in action. SMO can track visitors to a page, the number of shares, number of likes, peak traffic times, best days to post and a whole slew of other statistics that you can use to optimize your campaign.
In other words, SMO is the systematic and scientific approach to getting more people to like your page, more shares and overall a more powerful brand effect.
What Is Engagement?
Engagement on the other hand is a completely different ballgame. Engagement is the qualitative side of the social media equation. It’s how engaged your fans are with your work. It’s how emotionally vested they are in your brand. It’s how excited they get about your product when they tell their friends about it. It’s how much they think you care about them.
For instance, if you are using Instagram. You can increase engagement ratio by asking them questions. Get them talking to you and one another. Host contests that get them involved. Create games for your users. Ask for their feedback. You can also buy Instagram likes with smmkart to get your desired results. Pull them into your brand experience. Your users should feel like they’re part of your community.
Two Sides Of The Same Coin
It’s important to realize that if you want to succeed on social media, you need to use both optimization and engagement.
If you only have optimization, you’ll have a very technically well run campaign, but it just won’t have that “buzz.” That “buzz” is what causes social media campaigns to take off like wildfire. It’s what gets people to stick around. It’s what people remember.
On the other hand, if you only have engagement, you’re probably not getting as many people to your pages as you could. If you’re not posting your updates at optimal times, if you’re not tracking what kinds of content your visitors like, if you’re not using systematic testing to determine what works, you’re probably going to have a hard time succeeding in the long run.
Conclusion
For you to have a vibrant social media campaign that engages a lot of people, you need to have both optimization and engagement.