Since i wasn't able to find great content regarding the genesis of social media optimization, plus considering the fact that there is not even a complete article on the topic on Wikipedia, I've decided to write my first post on how could we define SMO and where does it come from.
Although some says that Rohit Bhargava was the first to introduce rules to define was SMO is, search engines optimizers were using social networks way longer before to optimize websites. In fact, knowing that search engine's algorithm is valuing popularity as one of his main criteria, building a link campaign through MySpace's profiles was becoming as easy as tagging keywords into these pages. Since Google fixed what was becoming a true problem (unless you enjoy spamming) promoting website via social medias has truly changed.
Social media optimization can now be seen as the ability to manage your marketing goals with the countless specifications and restrainers of what the web has the best to offer. Marketers have to deal with issues such as: choosing the right channel to communicate, finding the good timing to promote, sending information to the appropriate community and a lot more. While you would surely think that marketing was always about this, Internet marketing differs itself by knowing that users are mainly against what could look like traditional advertising and that we don't have a lot of literature, case studies or article on this specific topic.