Social recommendations like Facebook comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account various social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. 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 so many things change quickly on social media. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. 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 ton of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value 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 site, GooglePlus naturally carries great 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 year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, products, or brand on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, businesses, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, 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 market research, online reputation managers, marketing teams, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various providers have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict what customers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their brands so they can respond to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Learn more here:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s goal is simple … change all the reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any website owner can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up 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 3 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 noticed that their top 10 best performing sites saw an improvement of up to 360% more traffic, 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 campaigns can result in higher search rankings, increased web traffic and increased revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin section and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to change more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to monitor social activity from networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides website owners with many great features. Below we have listed some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows the latest information right on your WordPress dashboard, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-update functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Plugin uses minimal hosting resources. Metric reports are generated fast, using very little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory used to gather and compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, category, publishing date, or by post type.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials that customers have provided for Social Metrics Pro:
”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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”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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license lets you install SocialMetricsPro on 1 domain only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on multiple sites that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing details of SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
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 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 marketing campaigns and shows you how and where to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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