Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Google’s own head of the web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a site has, how influential the person sharing the information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, avert crises, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot potential market opportunities, and assess competitor activity. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, businesses, products, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by a cross-section of people including market researchers, marketing teams, online reputation management (ORM) specialists, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the tracking of a wide range of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand or products allowing you to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business,etc. For more details:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet highly effective social tracking tool for a WordPress-based online business and increasing your social media influence online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your task is simple … turn red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any website owner can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ websites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they were able to notice a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing can positively affect your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s job is to change more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social activity from social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to WP users. Below we have listed some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Utilizes very little resources. Metric reports are generated fast, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or by publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data in Excel for further analysis. Data can be exported in tab-delimited and comma-separated file formats, and imported to Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials users have written about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
***
”If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve.” Goes one of the most important sayings in business. And this is particularly true for tracking of your social mentions I found. There were two things that helped me a great deal to increase sharing after installing Social Metrics: First, I was able to see that some of my articles would perform much better on networks I wasn’t particularly using, such as StumbleUpon for example. Secondly, I could filter out the best performing content more easily and analyse what makes my readers share. Since then I have focused strongly on producing and replicating those posts that performed best.” Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer
Product Tips
A practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on one domain only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This option allows you to set up SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the SocialMetricsPro product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was correct when this review was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Product Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you instant feedback on the success of your social media marketing campaigns and guides you where and how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save money on outsourcing your social media campaigns.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***