Social Media Optimization or SMO is the process of optimising social media  to generate publicity and increase the awareness of a product, brand or event.

Social Media Optimization is becoming increasingly important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because the major search engines are increasingly using Social networks as a measure of the authority of a site or author in their search algorithms.

Site or author authority has become an imporant ranking factor for search engines like Google and Bing. The search engines consider Likes, Follows, +1's (or other social ranking indicators) to be a good measure of the popularity of a post and consequently a measure of the authority of the site or author.