Social interactions like Facebook shares, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. Google’s own head of the web spam team Matt Cutts 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 reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere 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 tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is 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 to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of 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 every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sharing the URL, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze social media campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, identify new market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, be alerted to disasters, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, topics, products, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including market researchers, online reputation management companies, marketing teams, social media marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately different service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track what is being said online about your products or brand so you can react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about. To learn more, go here:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social monitoring plugin for WordPress and improving your social media exposure online.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you improve your social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is simple … convert all the red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that anyone can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with the highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 their metrics on “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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can can have a significant effect on your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to turn all the red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know where to apply more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you monitor social media activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WordPress admin area.
Social Metrics Pro 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 of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides site owners with many features. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access updated information right on your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin suits even the smallest hosting. Reporting is very quickly, consuming very little hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, post authors, category, or by publishing date.
- 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 simple to use … just convert more red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Users
Here are some of the testimonials that users have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”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
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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 Plugin – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This enables you to run Social Metrics Pro on a single website. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This lets you use Social Metrics Pro on all domains that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was correct at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking 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 immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing campaigns and shows you how and where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social media campaigns.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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