Social Media Optimization?

Social Media Optimization is a method using technology in which you can generate publicity and share through social media and internet communities. Examples of Social Media Optimization includes RSS feeds, and bookmarking buttons/widgets such as Digg and Reddit.

It's a lame answer, but that's how I would describe it to my technologically challenged friends...

I think it's as simple as promoting and distributing your proposition to potential customers through social networks.  

To do so requires that the individuals in networks do your promoting for you, and that they are motivated to do so in a compelling way.  You can't push, you have to let them pull.  Give them something interesting to pull in.  Instead of your site being the destination, the users' own webpage is the destination - you invite them to pull your content to them in a way that adds value to them. 

In practical terms this means enabling your content to travel (through widgets for example), sowing seeds that will grow of their own accord.  You also need to know where to plant your seeds.  As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in "The Tipping Point" there's usually a few key individuals in any growth phenomenon that can trigger the critical mass needed to gain hold on a large scale.

Social Media Optimisation therefore requires

1. Site infrastructure flexibility to allow for distribution of content

2. Strategic thinking, idea generation (from the "pull perspective")

3. Tactical execution - knowing where and how to get your "campaign" off the ground

At least that's how I see it.  David. 

Hi Landon, here's my stab at it:  SMO is a way of  maximizing the ability of your content to exceed the boundaries of your website as much as possible. This can be done by creating content that is highly linkable such as video, creating content that can be interacted with in different ways such as podcasts and vlogs, and allowing for quick links to social bookmarking sites so that other people can share the content quickly and easily. Basically, you're creating content that can be interacted with and easily shared in a number of ways. And hopefully your content is interesting enough that people will want to share it in different ways!

I will just add that the 'optimization' part, onsite at least also (including above) involves making sure you are in the best possible position to take advantage of the SM space. By that I mean having PING going on, having all the pretty little SM buttons for users to easily Stumble, Digg, tag ect.... then I suppose we can add RSS feeds as well....

For the on-site stuff, optimizing means simply to have the 'optimium' potential of getting social media reach.... bla bla bla

There's my addition to the thread :0)