Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook comments, likes, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
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 can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘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 real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 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 online business strategy, as Google uses 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, like Google+ and Twitter.
(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 each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social 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 starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(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?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the authority of the person sharing the posts, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has accrued, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, be alerted to crises, spy on the competition, spot opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, businesses, products, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track volume and sentiments of online conversations and social activity on social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various groups that include marketing professionals, market research, PR agencies, social engagement and community staff, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various service providers have developed a range of tools that facilitate the tracking of a wide range of social media channels, enabling companies to track what is being said online about their brands so they can respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
To learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about, see this article:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we explore a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs for monitoring social media signals and improving your social media presence online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make improving your social media exposure uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is to change all reds into greens.
(A system that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can significantly affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Fast & Easy Installation
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every WordPress plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your administrator area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to convert reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally monitor social activity from networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress admin area.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to 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 is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to website owners. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated information from your WP dashboard, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update SocialMetricsPro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, consuming little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries to Excel for further analysis. Data can be exported in tab-delimited and comma-separated file formats, and imported to the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just turn all reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin customers have submitted for Social Metrics Pro:
”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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”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
A step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This edition lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This option lets you use SocialMetricsPro on all sites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for Social Metrics Pro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price when this content was published. This may not be the actual price set by the software developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here:
Additional Plugin Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take 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. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and shows you 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 WordPress admin area.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to outperform your competitors on social media.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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