Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team 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 perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites 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 when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community in the world. Research shows that one great post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, 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 shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next 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 online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting socially on Google+ each week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person sharing the URL is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your web page has amassed, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [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 monitor and analyze social media performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, be alerted to crises, identify potential market opportunities, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, businesses, products, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of groups that include marketing teams, market researchers, online reputation management (ORM) companies, social engagement and community staff, sales teams, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed many affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track what is being said online about your brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article where we explore many social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. For more information, go here:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s task is to convert more red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, they were able to notice 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing can result in better search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
For more details go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to turn red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest.
Social Metrics Pro 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 of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WordPress users with many unique features. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. You can update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin works even on the smallest hosting. Social reports are compiled fast, consuming little hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro 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 post authors, post type, publishing date, or by category.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered, sorted 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 more reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just some testimonials plugin users have published about 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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”I give Social Metrics a big thumbs up and I recommend it to anyone who’s serious about tracking their social sharing analytics.” James Johnson, Senior Editor at The Inquisitr
Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on 1 website only. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for the SocialMetricsPro plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
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.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and 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. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and shows them how and where 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 WP admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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