Wikipedia defines Social Media as the democratization of information the helps transform people from passive content readers and observers into active content publishers and participants.

Simply put, social media consists of collaborative tools such as internet forums, blogs, wikis and social networking sites.

Social media optimization (SMO) is a form of internet marketing where one can generate publicity through social media. The SMO process helps content get more widely distributed through social media networks. SMO can turn out to be an effective strategy to promote goods or services if done in a subtle manner, because it works in a word of mouth fashion.

Like SEO, SMO can be divided into on-page and off-page optimization. On-page social media optimization includes activities such has optimizing content, titles and code so that the on-page content can be easily accessed and distributed. Off-page SMO activities include building mashups and incoming links, thus helping the web property hosting the social media application become more popular on the internet.

With social networks experiencing colossal amounts of traffic each day, there's a huge untapped marketing potential within such networks. A carefully planned SMO campaign, targeting relevant audience, could help your business get the extra boost it needs.