In todays competitive technology driven market social networking websites plays a vital role in facilitating communication and collaboration between companies and their customers. But many are using this platform without being fully prepared. This practice in turn puts their company reputation at stake. There are companies that have jumped into space without adequate knowledge and things havent worked out as they would have wanted to with employees sharing way more than enough information on an internal social website or failure on part of the company to properly address negative comments about a product or service in the customer-facing social media. In order to avoid this you need to develop formal social media optimization strategies that will allow you to capitalize on the broad marketing opportunities that social networks provide. Companies providing social media optimization (SMO) services create some readiness requirements that would be demanded of the organizations using the service. This may essentially pertain to the development of an employee policy that states rules and regulations about what can and cannot be posted, a dedicated team that monitors the company on social media, plan for dealing with negative comments and disasters, etc.

Leveraging social networking services to develop strategies
Once the groundwork is done it is time to develop a social strategy that can get you started with the social networking project. The first step is to get a program started with the help of the social media optimization services. Prior to that you need to set business goals, policies, provide access to the social networking tools and educate employees in clear terms on how to use these tools both internally and externally.

At the next stage which is known as the safety level the social media optimization services vendor creates a defined workflow and crises preparation plan so as to deal with any kind of predicament, if encountered, and appoints a team dedicated to manage the entire task. Customers will always have opinion about your offerings and they should have the right to speak to you about that, be it positive or negative. The service provider can help develop a social media triage plan which is to be managed by a team of managers and analysts.

Now create an inventory of various social website accounts, a task that the social media optimization services vendor can help you with, and furnish a way to share the best practices. You can put the inventory on your company websites. Administer the use of social networking tools with excellence that is made responsible for establishing policy, developing governance rules and steering the process.

Social media optimization services to monitor SMO project progress
The enablement stage sees the social media optimization services vendor using means to track and measure the use of social networking sites. The idea is to empower the employees and not to restrain them. There are several companies that at this stage implement social strategy across corporate functions, instead of paying much heed to business unit silos. The service vendor generally provides monthly metrics on how the tools are being used internally and externally.

When you see all your business units using these social networking tools externally to interact with the customers and partners and not just using them to communicate within the company among the employees, know that your SMO project has reached the top maturity level. This is the final stage wherein social media optimization services can be helpful in predicting what the customers are going to need and what employees are going to require. This can be useful in enhancing customer support.

Conclusion
Social media optimization services are designed to help companies create strong online brand image and promote their products or services through various reputable social networking sites. Several companies try their hands in social networking activities without proper training and that can be dangerous. It is in the best interest of these companies to seek the help of social media optimization services vendor to take full advantage of the social networking platforms to improve their online visibility.