Move over SEO, SMO is in your wheelhouse

In the post Move Over for the New Critics, Paul Mabray does an excellent job describing the ascendancy of the new wine critics.

I was particularly drawn to the screenshot at the end of the post where Paul searched for Cornerstone Cellars on Google. Notice that all results “above the fold” are based on Paul’s social activity. No organic search results to be found! Think about what this means for SEO. This is a perfect example of how SMO (social media optimization) is at least as important as SEO. If your brand’s content, message, and locations are not socially engaged and shareable, they will not find their way into your social customers’ social graphs and search results. This is incredibly significant.

The traditional “Field of Dreams” thinking of throwing up a website, adding some SEO tweaks, and expecting search referral traffic to find you is outmoded. The influence of the social web is finding its way into all corners of the Internet. Not even the mighty Google search engine is immune.