Technically, SMO is part of SMM. But let us start at the beginning. As the name suggests, SMM, or Social Media Marketing, utilises social media as a marketing tool. It involves using a variety of social networks to promote your brand, products and services, build brand awareness and drive website traffic. This may include using paid ads on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, etc. but also includes several organic means, which is usually what is meant by SMO, or Social Media Optimisation. SMO, or Social Media Optimisation, is concerned solely with the organic methods by which one can build a good online reputation and drive traffic to your website. It also includes optimising your website and blog posts to make it easy for readers to follow you and share your content on social media. Paid social media advertising Everyone appreciates the fact that your captive audience spends most of its time online on social networking platforms such as Facebook. Any online advertising strategy must consider paid social as an important and effective channel for creating interest in the brand and generating sales leads and conversions. Organic methods to promote your business SMO involves a higher degree of involvement compared to setting up and launching a paid ad to a target audience on a social network. It means hours of engagement in social media groups, blogs and forums to build brand familiarity and trust. It works by boosting visibility and brand strength and it also generates leads. Furthermore, just as SEO looks at website content and functionality with search engines in mind, SMO pays attention to how easily content can be promoted and shared on social media and encourages website visitors to join your social media pages and groups through well placed icons and calls to action.