Social interactions like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media 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 social signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 sites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media community on the planet. Research shows that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that 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 every single 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 number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus a web page has amassed, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [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 track and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, topics, brands, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor social media 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 digital reputation management companies, market research, marketing professionals, social marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different providers have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, allowing companies to track what consumers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their brands or products so they can respond to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
Go here if you want to learn more social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives:
(Are you monitoring social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective social tracking tool for your web presence and growing your social media influence online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s objective is simple … turn reds into greens.
(A system that any website owner can follow … 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 are colored amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search engine rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In No Time
SocialMetricsPro installs like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to change all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social activity across leading social media networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social 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 can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers website owners with many features. Below we have listed some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little hosting resources. Reporting is in seconds, consuming very little hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just turn red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have published about SocialMetricsPro:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
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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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on 1 website only. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This lets you use Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase Social Metrics Pro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing details:
Additional Product Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and 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. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social marketing.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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