Social Media Marketing vs. Social Media Optimization

Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are two new phrases that popped up last year to define marketing through social media and social networking sites. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what each of them mean and what exactly they define, which is bound to happen with any new phrase.

SMM in contrast, is representative of a creative perspective on marketing over social networking websites. It refers to crating and then distributing content and similar messages through the social web network using some form of viral marketing. The "viral marketing" content specified here could be a funny blog post that gets bookmarked and possibly makes its way to digg's homepage or spreading a viral video by placing it on YouTube and other social media websites. The main difference is that the work here is off-site and involves engaging your potential customer base on territory familiar to them.

Definition of “Social Media Optimization” Defines Social Media Optimization (SMO) as the process of optimizing a website to be more compatible with online communities by adding functionality such as RSS feeds and social media submission buttons. Also mentions the 17 “rules” of social media optimization developed by Rohit Bhargava, Jeremiah Owyang, Cameron Olthuis, Loren Baker, and Lee Odden.