Social media optimization refers to optimizing your websites and content in terms of sharing across social media and network sites. I’ve talked at length about the importance of social search and social proof; search engines are putting ranking progressively in the hands of its own users who themselves are users of social networks like Facebook, and Twitter.

Social Media Optimization Techniques

The implication is that when information is shared or “liked”, say a blog post you’ve written, by someone on a social network like Facebook, that information/content is of quality. Google doesn’t have to rack its brain trying to make up its own mind about whether or not your blog post is quality or not because one of its own users gave your content a thumbs up themselves.

It’s more difficult to tip the scales or influence the search engines in this way, and consequently search engines like Google are putting more stock into social search which is why we need to make sure we’re effectively using social media optimization.

So how about effectively using social media optimization? Here are 4 social media optimization techniques to consider to make sure you are social media optimized:

Proof

Social proof encourages people to read your content, share it, and it significantly adds to your credibility. Check out this post on how to get Facebook likes which you can extend and apply to any other social network of choice.

Sharing

Make sure your content is easily shared. This is easy if people are on the social network, but if they’re on your site you should have some kind of system in place where you make it simple for people to share your content.

Logging In

As an example, people need to be logged in to Facebook before they can “Like” your content on your page. Make it possible for people to sign into Facebook from your website significantly increases the odds in which they’ll interact with you. Don’t assume that your entire audience is logged into every social network all of the time; so have that option available on your page.

Comments

You can turn your comments section into a more social Facebook comments section using the Simple Facebook Connect plugin. This encourages more comments because people can comment with their actual Facebook profiles. Their name and even their current FB picture appears right next to the comment and people can visit their profiles very easily.

The downside/tradeoff is that using an interface like Disquss or basic WordPress comments is SEO friendly and can help you rank whereas Facebook comments are unrecognized by search engines; so ultimately your site will not be nearly as SEO friendly in using Facebook Connect versus another system of comments. For a further explanation click on this link for Facebook comments in WordPress.