Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of online platforms to generate income or publicity to increase the awareness of a brand, event, product or service. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, blogging sites, social bookmarking sites, social news websites, video sharing websites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (Twitter). SMO is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) in that the goal is to drive web traffic, and draw attention to a company or creator. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites.
SMO is used to strategically create online content ranging from well-written text to eye-catching digital photos or video clips that encourages and entices people to engage with a website. Users share this content, via its weblink, with social media contacts and friends. Common examples of social media engagement are "liking and commenting on posts, retweeting, embedding, sharing, and promoting content". Social media optimization is also an effective way of implementing online reputation management (ORM), meaning that if someone posts bad reviews of a business, an SMO strategy can ensure that the negative feedback is not the first link to come up in a list of search engine results.