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Social Graph Optimization (SGO)

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While the Web's economy operates in the currencies of links, conversations and content, the ultimate driver of these transactions is so obvious, it often goes unnoticed: the search engine.

It's commonly said that Google is the new universal homepage, and research repeatedly confirms that it-or its search counterparts Bing, Yahoo, etc.-is the starting point for the vast majority of online users, be they consumers, media, investors, employees ... you get the idea. Thus, a company's placement in the top search results can be the deal maker or breaker for any type of communications effort, from marketing and media outreach to crisis management. Search engine optimization (SEO) strategies evolved accordingly as it became clear that this was the best-if not the only-way to exert some control over what content audiences found first.

With the rapid socialization of search, though, even the most advanced SEO strategies are proving ineffective. As an increasing amount of social media content is incorporated into search data through the likes of Google Social Search, the ultimate optimization Holy Grail is sure to be SGO-that is, Social Graph Optimization.

That's the term used during a Social Media Week panel discussion in NYC yesterday, in which panelists David Berkowitz (Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i), Seth Sternberg (CEO, Meebo), Mark Ghuneim (CEO, Founder of Wiredset and Trendrr), Hashem Bajwa (Head of Digital at Droga 5) and Anna O'Brien (social media enthusiast and data analyst) discussed how brands can reach and influence consumers through their increasingly robust social graphs.

But first: What is a social graph, anyway? According to the panel, it's the online representation of our relationships (business and personal) in social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The obvious next question, then: What is Social Graph Optimization?

The answer, courtesy of panel coverage: "Social graph optimization = increasing your visibility in social graph, like SEO optimization does for search."
"Search has been great traffic driver," Sternberg said. "Now social media drives [traffic] and needs to be optimized."

This new iteration of optimization has implications on every facet of strategic communications, especially listening to, evaluating and measuring the impact that online conversations have on your brand, reputation and bottom line. While the best practices for SGO are still emerging, the panelists did make a few points that will surely be fodder for future discussions:

• "Shareability" is the crux of SGO: "Create natural messaging for your users to make their friends want to click," Sternberg said. "If you get 1% of daily visitors to share, you are doing well." "Bottom line: if you do something well, it will be shared. Quality gets shared."- Ghuneim
• Learn the tools before you use the tools: "Education is key," Sternberg said. "We're failing to teach the tools that are necessary to succeed in this new media environment." As for some of those tools, Meebo and Facebook Connect were both topics of conversation.
• Balance owning your content and leasing it: "You want to publish where your users are, but don't give up your own home." -Sternberg
• Start segmenting audiences according to strength of relationship: "It's no longer ‘Everybody is friends,'" O'Brien said. "Moving from "everybody is friends" in SM to diff types of friends and groups that need to be targeted."

The kicker came from Ghuneim, who urged the audience to reconsider their definition of optimization:

"When I lose a follower, I consider that optimization," he said. "They weren't listening and weren't relevant."