Social Media Optimization?

I have been hearing a lot recently about the concept of social media optimization or SMO. With the advent of social search engines like Digg and Del.icio.us it is only natural that retailers are looking to add this relatively new phenomenon to their marketing mix. Wikipedia describes Social Media Optimization as follows…”a way to optimize websites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites. For example allowing RSS feeds, easier linking, incorporation of third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos”.
Future articles will outline the ins and out of this new form of marketing, but one thing is very clear. Blogs, blog branding and blog marketing are a very large part of the picture.