The term Social Media Optimization, (SMO), has recently become an industry buzzword in search marketing circles. SMO refers to the practice of implementing changes to optimize a website so that it is more easily linked to, more easily found in social media applications such as del.icio.us, MySpace, Tribe.net or YouTube, and by interested parties throughout the blogosphere.

Social media optimization and marketing is now viewed as another “traffic alternative to Google”.  Online internet marketers are increasingly looking for alternative and/or additional channels for content distribution and marketing and consumers for sources of information and interaction. And some have suggested social search as an alternative.

The ultimate goal of any marketing campaign is to put products or services in front of as many interested potential buyers as possible.  As of now, tens of millíons of registered members populate dozens of social networks. People appear to enjoy the ability to create cool communities and inform each other. Online marketers looking for another alternative are therefore turning to social media spaces as social marketing tools.

Social media is a cool, barely controlled environment in which individual users can form ínstant communities, finding friendships based on shared interest, passion and ideas. As the theory goes nobody knows everything but everyone knows something. Collectively, we must know a great deal. In a social network, large groups of people who would otherwise likely be strangers associate with each other based on spider-web networks of contacts, friends, images, interests, and occupations, creating ever expanding communities. These communities, built around shared ideas and interests, and collective wisdom draw users by giving them the ability to educate, inform and share with others.

But how long do such environments remain cool after the invasion of internet marketing experts? Such invasion is definitely going to degrade the experience shared amongst the people making up the social network.

The social media environment is increasingly going to be used as an alternative to Google and definitely as a  marketing tool regardless of how the various social networks and their millíons of members feel about it. In the realm of social media, adding tags, links and trackbacks is easier than altering the title, meta-tags, content text and link patterns.  As Internet users gravitate towards the social media and thus, towards each other, online advertising is likely to take a community and interest based focus.

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