Social media optimization - Practical tips.

Social media optimization (SMO) was a term originally coined by Rohit Bhargava. In a newer post written in 2010 he states the 5 new rules of SMO as being: Create shareable content, Make sharing easy, Reward engagement, Proactively share content and finally Encourage the mashup.



Creating shareable content

Where to share & what to share for best results?

Where to share content.
Research by Shareholic (2012) shows that the best platform for sharing is Facebook (20.4%) followed by Twitter (11.1%) and Digg (7.5%).

Highest content shared.
For content sharing the most effective has been found to be animation, news stories, cute animals, nature and humour. According to Track Social (2012), the top 5 most shared brands on Facebook are as follows: Disney gaining 12,713 shares a day with holiday themes at the fore followed by the news site Huffington Post with 7,996 shares, National Geographic focusing on cute and nature content at 7,151 shares, Cheezburger which claims to have 'all your funny in one place' gaining 6,409 shares and finally the popular American Fox news channel which gathers 5,870 shares daily.

The best social objects
Social media expert Dan Zarella has researched into over a million Facebook posts to discover that Content that is by far shared the most is photos followed by videos, with the optimum length of characters in the message being around 450 characters.

Time to post
According to research by Radium One of over 10,000 publishers, the optimal time for sharing social content varies based on location, platform and device. The study shows the UK as having the highest shares generally at 6pm against the USA who are most active at 9am. Certain platforms have additionally revealed particular trends such as Twitter which is optimum at 1pm, Facebook at 5pm, Pinterest at 11pm, Google+ at 10am and finally mobile devices are most popular for shares at 10pm.

Visual power
Whilst Facebook is the leader in the social space, Photo sharing sites like Pinterest are quickly gaining ground possibly due to the time poor and cluttered world of messages that we experience in our daily lives. The thirst for emotional propositions are growing all the time as we chose to digest content in a more visual way, According to Hussain and Leaning at Hubspot "90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, which are processed 60,000x faster than in the brain text" which explains the need for inspirational imagery even further.In a new study, Simply Measured has discovered that Pinterest now rivals Google+ in social adoption growth rate. According to Anna Washenko (2013) the best way to pick Pinterest content for viral spread is to think like an artist, emphasize lifestyle, to get graphic with infographics, to tag and categorize your pins and to ensure that the links are kept up to date.

Facilitating sharing

Don't forget to utilize Pinterest sharing buttons!

In addition to good content being posted at the right time on the right platform, facilitating the sharing process is important for both awareness and results. One company that has profited from engaging with new customers on Pinterest is Petplan. This insurance firm aimed to increase awareness and need for their pet insurance products. Following the addition of Pin it sharing buttons to their website, Pinterest follow buttons on their emails and social campaigns and optimizing their site content for Pinterest, they experienced a 87% increase in new site traffic a 35% increase in page views and a 12.5% increase in insurance quote requests which has helped to build the brand and lead to sales.

Reward engagement

Reward the right behaviours for best results.

Reward programmes have become increasingly popular in tying together engagement with results, particularly in gamification. Rewarding the user for the right behaviour is important when building customer engagement, monetizing your endeavours and developing a more loyal following through social media. Marczweski describes 5 key areas where rewards programmes can be effective; Welcoming the user, Encouraging and reinforcing in early stages of the customer journey, Scarcity (offering rewards in a regular but limited fashion) rewarding loyalty and by way of a surprise.
Reinforcing the customer journey and rewarding in the right way has been successfully showcased through the efforts of Canada’s AIRMILES reward programme. In a study by Loyalty One they discovered a direct link between social media activity and transaction volume when participating in the discussion and use of incentives such as bonus miles and lotteries. They found that those who shared their thoughts about the AIRMILES and the benefits of the program boosted transactions with AIRMILES companies between 15-28% in a 8 week period, with the correct behaviour being rewarded, for example the ones contributing the longest comments seemed to gain the highest rewards.

Proactively sharing content

Tell a story

Rewards have been shown to prove effective when used in the right way to drive the right sorts of behaviour. Another way to optimize social media, however, is to proactively share branded content and one effective way to do this has been through story telling.
Grab networks syndicated content for a firm named CPG. The company created a 12 story episode about expectant parents and how their lives changed as a result, Grab Networks then syndicated webisodes across the web to drive awareness and engagement with expectant and new mums. The results were high view through rates, leading to positive brand appeal and an uplift in purchase intent by 7 points among one episode viewers, and an uplift to 22 points among multiple episode views which also supported a rise in organic growth of 3-4%.

Encourage the mashup.

Involve others in telling the story

To encourage sharing and participation on social media it requires being exclusive, inclusive, enticing and responsive. One way to be compelling and to encourage mash up is to tell a story that others can continue. The literary scholar, Gottschall, explains how emotional propositions via story telling are effective at persuasion:
"The new gospel of business storytelling offers a challenge to common views of human nature. When we call ourselves Homo sapiens, we are arguing that it is human sapience--wisdom, intelligence--that really sets our species apart. And when we think we can best persuade with dispassionate presentation of costs and benefits, we are implicitly endorsing this view. But we are beasts of emotion more than logic. We are creatures of story, and the process of changing one mind or the whole world must begin with “Once upon a time.”

Greatest social media contributors

To better learn who is most likely to encourage the 'mash up' we need to investigate who contributes the most to social media. According to Pew Research (2012) the biggest users on social networks are female, aged 18-29, with some college education and a household income of less than $30,000 dollars a year. Furthermore, research by Ipsos in a presentation by Icrossing state that 73% of young adult women describe themselves as influential information sources.

Dave Kerpen, who has been very successful at earning customers through storytelling, in an interview with Social Media Examiner, explains why stories attract more customers. He expresses how it helps to persuade customers and creates a deeper connection through involving them in your story;"By being able to tell a story, you’re able to bring some real personality to what it is you do, and at the same time, convince people that you know what you are doing...It's important to truly listen because people would rather talk about themselves"

Customers are no longer seeking transactions with brands, they want to share experiences, conversations and have two way 'relationships'. Lululemon, a yoga wear company, has seen success through integrating its users in helping to tell the story of their brand. The company preaches 'inspirational wisdom' and created a campaign called #thesweatlife; whereby users were asked to tweet or instagram photos of them 'getting their sweat on'. An inspirational and aspirational story of the brand was developed through crowdsourcing that garnered 7,000 images from its community and 40,000 unique visitors since launch.

Using UGC to bring your brand to life, which in turn tells a story, is likely to continue to be the key mash up success of the future. Harnessing the creative wisdom of the crowds and influencing the 'hives' will no doubt be key to unlocking the best 'mash up' for developing true engagement, enchantment and connections with customers, ultimately leading to relationships and sales.

What works well for your brand?