SMO vs. SMM: How Are They Different?
We live in a digital world where social media is something that everyone partakes in. With this, there is a need to make your brand stand out among the stiff competition. Acumen IT Services is one of the top digital marketing companies in Chandigarh and among the best in India that can help you elevate your presence on your social channels.
But how do you do it? Most people will think and say SMO and SMM and that is right. But only a few know the difference between the two and how effective they truly are. Let’s explore and learn more to gain a better understanding of what sets SMO and SMM apart.
Understanding SMO
Social Media Optimisation, better known as SMO, is the art of optimising your social channels to organically increase their visibility and engagement. The crux of SMO lies in keeping updated and aptly adapting your strategies to social media’s ever-changing algorithm.
Adapting to algorithm-friendly strategies helps your brands stay ahead of the curve by enhancing their visibility to more people, thus increasing their chances of getting better engagement. This is done effectively by creating content that consumers actively want to engage in, want to share with more people and want to be an active part of the discussion.
Understanding SMM
SMM or Social Media Marketing revolves around leveraging social media platforms to effectively promote your brand with paid advertising. This is done by harnessing the vast reach and influence of social channels like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and using paid advertising to promote your brand.
Since social media is used by all ages, the key in this segment lies in understanding your audience based on factors like demographics, their behaviour, preferences, retention, etc. and then tailoring your strategy accordingly.This is done optimally with the help of tactics like targeted ads, eye-catching content, fostering community engagement, etc.
What is the Difference Between SMO and SMM
Organic vs. Paid
What is more important – short-term or long-term reach? If a brand is starting from scratch, the answer is a combination of the two, as one drives the other. But one has to be aware of when to go paid or the organic route.
As previously discussed, the main driving force behind doing SMO is to organically improve your brand’s presence on all social media channels. By optimising these social channels with attractive profiles and engaging content, your followers will automatically start to engage. This fosters an organic relationship between the consumer and the brand that is built on trust and credibility.Though this is a slow process and takes time, it is organic and thus ensures that the visibility and engagement are sustainable.
On the flip side, the main goal of doing SMM is not to increase engagement but to increase the visibility of your social channels to a targeted audience through paid advertising. So rather than just focusing on increasing long-term visibility, the core focus here is to reach a broader but targeted audience.
Long-Term vs. Immediate Impact
Is it good to get good results over time or results that are great but short-term? Any brand thinking of long-term sustainability would always prioritise the former over the latter. This is something that perfectly summarizes the difference between SMO and SMM.
With an effective SMO strategy, your social channels will take their sweet time to grow organically but will garner good results. This strategy, though long-term, ensures sustainability by building meaningful connections with customers.
SMM, on the other hand, is all about getting the maximum number of eyes to engage with your brand. Due to this, brands often rely on paid advertising campaigns to yield results that are immediate and short-term. But when you consult our team at Acumen IT Services, which is one of the leading social media marketing companies in Chandigarh, they will craft a strategy that will help you get sustainable results with high engagement.
Objective
Though SMO and SMM may seem the same from afar, they both serve a different purpose.
In SMO, the main objective is to foster organic community engagement and build long-term brand loyalty. This is done by incorporating organic strategies to increase brand visibility, drive traffic to the website, etc.
With SMM, the idea is to garner immediate results that have measureable outcomes. Being a paid advertisement, it has a very transactional nature with the aim of achieving very specific marketing goals like sales, brand awareness, lead generation, etc.
Measurability
It is vital to get results that are quantifiable to double down on strategies that are working. Though both SMO and SMM have measurability, one is more precise than the other.
SMO involves measuring and analysing performance data such as the number of views, engagement rates, follower growth, and so on. However, this data insight has limitations because it just indicates what the audience prefers and responds to, not the specific act that prompted that reaction.
SMM is similar to SMO in the sense that it does measure and analyse performance metrics, but what makes SMM special is that its results are precise. With this insight, brands can directly attribute their conversions to specific campaigns to better optimise their future results.
Resource Investment
Want to get high-quality results? Well, to get there, investment is quite important. Here, one is dependent on the investment of time, while the other is dependent on financial investment.
Since SMO is organic, it involves a significant time investment. During this, it is important to create engaging content, actively engage with followers, optimise your profiles, etc. In such a case, the success of your social channels often depends on the quality and relevance of the content shared and the engagement of consumers with it.
With SMM, time is less of a concern and financial investment is prevalent. Money is invested in paid campaigns that can be monitored and effectively optimised over time to deliver the best results. This brings in a short-term and targeted audience and works best for new offers, launches, or specific product promotions.
How Does Acumen IT Services Help Your Brand Lead From the Forefront?
Acumen IT Services is a name that has helped several brands across industries establish a reputable place for themselves in the digital realm over the last two decades. Be it the best SMM or SMO services in Chandigarh that you are looking for, Acumen IT Services is a name that you can have complete faith in.
With expertise across industries, our team of professionals delivers quality results that are quantifiable and can be used to sustainably grow your social channels. Though our team mostly relies on SMO to build loyalty for your brand among consumers, SMM is employed at times to bring the much-needed attention at that point in time.
Connect with Acumen IT Services to elevate your presence across social channels today!
