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What is the SMO?
Specialist sites are increasingly talking about SMO ... but what really is the Social Media Optimization (SMO)? To begin with, the SMO can be defined as a set of best practices to improve the visibility of a website or a company on networks and social media.Why be on social networks?
At the time of digital, being present on the web is no longer an option. Note that in 2013, 89.2% of businesses that went bankrupt were not present on the Internet. Concretely 83.7% of Internet users are present on social networks. The SMO has become in 2014 one of the levers most used by companies to increase their visibility on the web. An SMO strategy allows you to:§ Increase the commitment of your customers. Build a loyal community, get feedback from your customers.
§ Develop your visibility with a new audience
§ To increase the acquisition of qualified prospect (for example a visitor from a Facebook ad spends an average of 76 euros on an e-commerce site)
Being present as a brand on social networks has become indispensable to reach any kind of target. In 2017 companies will spend 3.2 billion euros on different media (source Forrester).
In the following of this article, we will concentrate on the social network of reference: Facebook
Why Facebook?
With 26 million accounts in France, 4.5 billion posts worldwide and 10 billion likes, Facebook is the undisputed leader of social networks in France and around the world. Currently, being present on social networks has many advantages for your brand:§ Carrying your values
§ Federate a community through competitions
§ Better know your customers (social CRM) and acquire new ones
§ Target a target with Facebook ads and sponsored posts
Facebook is an indispensable lever for your brand. However, please follow some good practices to optimize your campaigns. On average your posts will only be visible to 16% of your fans. The Facebook Algorithm (EdgeRank) posts your posts to your most active users in your community.
This is why to improve the virality of your posts, there are different good practices to respect.
1. Interact with your community
You can explicitly ask your community to share your articles or news. Involve your fans as much as possible, do not hesitate to reward a fan who is committed to your brand. No need to pay your fan, value it simply by putting forward his comment in a future post. Another important point, if you want a community involved then you have to be very responsive and personally respond to your fans' comments.
2. Simplify your posts.
On each of your actions, limit the number of clicks (the "one click experience") to a maximum. Information must be easily accessible. The hang of your post should be short and get to the point. On Facebook, the users are very solicited and read the information diagonally. Do not overload your posts with non-essential information. Finally, do not forget the humor! Social networks are a place of relaxation for Internet users. You will get your message across by making them smile.
3. Prefer the visual
The visual is the first contact with your future fans, so do not hesitate to put on your homepage a clearly visible and easily identifiable photo. We advise you to favor visual posts, then links to a website and lastly only text.
4. Involve your community
Want to increase the engagement rate of your Facebook page? Then accept that your fans publish directly on it while remaining vigilant. Similarly, question your community. Ask a question informally to your fans to create a feeling of closeness. For example privilege: a pair of shoes to advise me? Rather than what types of pairs can you advise me?
5. Post at regular intervals
Remember that the optimal post hours on Facebook are between 1 pm and 4 pm. It is in this time zone that you will have more chances to touch your fans. Avoid silences of too long duration. A silence can sever the connection with your community.
Conclusion
Facebook remains a major social network for the SMO. However, the popularity of the social network has decreased among young people and the rate of user engagement has been reduced from 3% to 1% in 2014.
This is why, for an optimal strategy, you must diversify your broadcast channels. For example, Twitter will be more interesting for event promotion. Pinterest will be more relevant to e-commerce sites.