Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook comments, likes, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines now take into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using Google+ each week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social metrics, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has accrued, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, be alerted to impending crises, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and identify market opportunities. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, products, businesses, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, social media 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 marketing professionals, online reputation specialists, market researchers, agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed many tools to facilitate the tracking of a wide spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict consumer behavior around their products or brands allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing a number of social media monitoring tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more:
(Do you know how to effectively track social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple social tracking plugin for WordPress and improving your social media presence online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users grow their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is simple … change all the red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in higher search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to turn all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to monitor social activity from social media networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers site owners with a number of great features. Here are some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays the latest information from your WordPress admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when a new version is released.
- Plugin works even on the smallest hosting. Social reports are generated in seconds, using little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server resources used to gather and compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, category, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export data to 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just change all the red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are just a few of the testimonials and comments that users have provided for the Social Metrics Pro 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
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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – 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.
Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This edition enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This license option lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on all the websites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for the Social Metrics Pro software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines are now taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro 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 strategy and shows you where and how 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 WordPress dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social marketing campaigns work for you.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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