Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines now take into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social media community in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGooglePlus.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your URL has amassed, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, identify opportunities for engagement, spy on your competitors, and be alerted to crises. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, businesses, brands, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to monitor trends, activity, and conversations on social media channels like blogs, forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms, message boards, video sites, and user-generated content is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of groups that include marketing professionals, market research, PR companies, sales teams, social engagement and community personnel, and social marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately many technology companies have developed affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track what is being said online about your products or brand allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
Go here for a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple social tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media influence.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s job is simple … change all the reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand sites 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can dramatically affect your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s job is to turn all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track The Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally monitor social activity across leading networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Digg directly from your WordPress admin area.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to 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 SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WordPress users with many great features. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays the latest stats from your WP admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Low server resource consumption. Reporting is in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post authors, post type, or publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries 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 very simple to use … just change reds into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Below are just some testimonials users have published about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”Our entire marketing strategy relies on social media. Each post on the site has viral potential, but we needed one place to see which social networks are performing the best for us…We went ahead and got the PRO Version of Social Metrics.” Syed Balkhi, Founder of List25 and WPBeginner.com
***
“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Useful Tips
A step-by-step guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This license option allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single web site. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This license enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the pricing when this article was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Product Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you how and where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social marketing work for you.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
***
***