SMO is the talk of the town this month. What is SMO? Yet another technology buzz-word I’m afraid. Social Media Optimisation is the term for hiring a firm to look after your social media accounts and other sites that can expose your profile online. Be they Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, foursquare, Flickr, Google Local, Google Maps, TrueLocal, Yellow Pages online, other Aussie local sites,  Yahoo, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Tumblr, Digg, Reddit, and of course blogging, each requires consideration as to whether your business should be exposed on it.

The latest statistics show advertising budgets in social media (SMO), search engines (SEO and SEM) and online advertising continue to rise. 4 of 5 global Fortune 100 companies use social media tools for marketing, up from 2 of 5 in 2008. 25% of these companies are using all four major platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs. Online advertising sales will grow 10% in 2011. 75% of media agencies expect to increase their mobile marketing budgets. Almost all marketers value web data such as Google Analytics and buzz metrics (eg tracking Tweets) to inform their campaign decisions.

This all goes to help Google, the gatekeepers of internet search, which recorded $8.58 billion in gross revenue for the last quarter. After expenses that comes to a measly $2.3 billion in net income. Not a bad business to have! To contribute further to the bottom line Google has entered the smart phone market this month with the android based “Nexus S”. Apple are rumored to release the more powerful iPhone 5 in September but are now facing stiff competition with Android based smart phones.