Before starting on this let me take a moment to talk about how I define Social Search Optimization (SSO…another acronym…I know). In my world SSO is the process of taking your Social Marketing programs and optimizing them so that they can rank in the Search engines.  The goal in my mind is to have as many page 1 listings as possible in which you control the experience.  The first question that I usually get when discussing this is “How does social and SEO go together?”  So let me explain…

Social is another one of your assets
When engaging in SEO, it is important to optimize all of your assets for the web.  Your social programs should be considered optimizable assets. Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Video, a Wikipedia page and News all show up in the organic listings. These assets are not necessarily targeted at specific keywords but rather you overall brand or particular themes. 

The best scenario is that you have an optimized social asset that appears in the organic listings and then can pass the user onto your site or to the desired action.  Your analytics can show you that you may be getting a bunch of traffic from Twitter of facebook that you can attribute to exposure from the search engines.  If you are getting traffic from an optimized Twitter profile or video that ranked organically – isn’t that SEO traffic? Additionally, if you are linking your campaigns together you will be able to make gains on link popularity and drive more link value.

Link Value
I discussed this concept in my Search Marketing Trends newsletter when I discussed Twitter buying Summize. With a social strategy you end up making friends with others in your space. Some of these people will link to your products or programs. Now your social strategy is helping you to develop quality links…which is kind of important.

What is a Search Engine Anyway?
The lines continue to blur on the sites we use for search.  On Facebook, I search for people with similar interests.  On YouTube I search for product demonstrations that I was un able to find on the manufacturer site.  When I was interested in finding out the real deal on iPhone 3G problems, I went to Digg.  Don’t just look at these sites as social sites.  Think of them as sites people use to search on.

Leverage your assets everywhere
If you plan on putting a video on your facebook group or on your website, then why isn’t it uploaded to YouTube or another search engine?  Make sure that you are letting aspects of your social campaigns live in other spaces to increase your chances of being found by search engines.

As we see more social sites being crawled by the engines and people looking for information from these sites, you will see a greater need for this type of optimization.