Continuing our series on SEO for clinics … Social Media Optimisation : explained

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What is Social Media Optimisation?

Social media optimisation, also known as SMO, is using different channels to generate publicity and thus increase the awareness of a particular product or service. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networking sites can be used in SMO as well as RSS feeds and bookmarking sites.

What is the aim of Social Media Optimisation?

SMO has similarities to SEO as the main objective is to generate more traffic to a website. However, SMO differs from SEO as it generates more traffic to a website by optimising a website’s content to encourage users to share links to the website across different social platforms. The objective of SMO is to create content that the user sees as interesting; this can be text, photos, videos and other forms of media that attract the user and encourages them to engage with the website and then share the content.

SMO is also a way of implementing online reputation management which means that you can control what users see when they search for you online. For example, if a client gave you a bad review, SMO can make sure that the review is not at the top of the search results. An example of SMO for a clinic could be posting a video of a therapist working with a client on a specific treatment; a user who is interested that treatment will be encouraged to share the content if they find it useful or appealing.

Why is Social Media Optimisation so important?
  1. Increases reach – Social Media Optimisation gives you the opportunity to reach a huge audience as the number of people using social networking platforms is always increasing. As a clinic, optimising your content for social media will definitely increase your reach. Having shareable, relevant content on your website; such as a blog or video tutorials, will encourage the user to share it on their social media channels. This will then make the content available to anyone who interacts with the user’s profile.
  2. Generates more traffic – SMO allows you to reach customers worldwide via different social media platforms and therefore increases the traffic to your website as your brand reaches more people.
  3. Lead generation – Social media is commonly used for branding and creating a buzz or hype around a product or service, but in recent times it is also being used for lead generation. Social media optimisation encourages lead generation as, if the user likes the content they are seeing, then they are more likely to show interest in the product or service.
  4. Search engine ranking improves – When SMO is implemented with SEO, rankings on search engines should improve. Search engines, such as Google, have started acquiring data from social media platforms and showing them on search results; as a result of this SMO has become more and more important to marketers. As long as a website’s content is kept relevant and shareable, their search engine ranking will improve as more content is shared.
  5. Creates a strong web presence – SMO allows a business to create a strong web presence and to establish internet authority of the brand. This is because SMO promotes the brand to new and existing customers as well as helping with branding and brand visibility.

If you would like to find out more information regarding Social Media Optimisation then please do not hesitate to get in touch. Although social media optimisation is not part of e-clinic, we would be happy to put you in touch with our marketing company, Assembly Marketing