Social media optimization includes using social bookmarking websites for your articles and content, using RSS feeds, blogging, and sharing "tagged" photographs on Flickr or videos on places such as Video Jug or YouTube.

Social media optimization is an offshoot of SEO marketing techniques, except this is more about placement than content (though you still need to start with content) and generating website traffic straight from sources other than search engine results pages. Social media optimization is also a form of viral marketing; that is, a marketing technique where just one marketing piece gets shared and re-sent (and thus viewed and/or heard) in an ever-increasing, parabolic way throughout the Internet at very little cost to you.

This is also a 21st century online version of what successful businessmen and marketers have always done: networking in social settings to build trust and a reputation for being someone who can be related to. Networking is the most efficient means of target marketing, and the reach and speed of the Internet just amplifies or magnifies its power.

(SMO) was coined by Rohit Bhargava, who publishes the Influential Marketing Blog and is very influential indeed. He says that SMO is to be used to: increase your linkability; make tagging and bookmarking easy; reward inbound links; help your content travel; encourage the "mashup" (Mixture of content or elements. For instance, an application that was built from routines from multiple sources or a Web site that combines content and/or scripts from multiple sources is said to be a mashup.~ Computer Desktop Encyclopedia); and get communities connected.

Linkability is the key to all Internet success. It's simply the quality of being a desirable place for other people to link to from their websites or to tell other people about online (such as at the social bookmarking websites like Digg, Yahoo My Web, Propeller, etc.).

Tagging and bookmarking are made easier by SMO because you can tag a ton of your content the same and similar ways to maximize the targeting of a given audience.

Inbound links are rewarded by being seen as "strong" by the webcrawlers. This rewards your site and sites that choose to link to your site by increasing your profiles on search engines.

Needless to say, helping your content travel and the "mashup" have been discussed above in so many words. In essence, with SMO you're weaving your tangled Internet web and creating something like a neural network over which are transmitted ever stronger and faster signals, all giving you increased traffic and increased business.

Social media optimization should be used by anyone who is serious about Internet marketing success.