Social recommendations like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals when determining a website’s 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 web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. 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 a sensible one - “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 ascribe higher search rankings to.
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 influential social media community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus or 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 every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking 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 interacting socially on Google+ each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person retweeting your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount of adds and shares, 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 social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and negative 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 important to not only find ways to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social performance in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, spy on your competitors, take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, brands, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor volume and sentiments of online conversations and social activity on social media channels like blogs, forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Medium, etc., discussion groups, video/photo sharing sites, and user-generated content 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 professionals, market researchers, online reputation specialists, sales teams, social media marketing agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various providers have developed many affordable tools that facilitate the active tracking of a wide range of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict what is being said online about their products or brands so they can respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
We have created a detailed article where we explore over 30 social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. For more details, go here:
(Are you looking for an effective way to track social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress-driven websites for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media influence.
Our Recommended WordPress Product …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your job is simple … turn more reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn 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 2,000+ sites over a period of 3 months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, 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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can positively can have a dramatic impact on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user section and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to change reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social activity from social networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro 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 is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal usage of server resources. The plugin can generate reports in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort 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 category.
- 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just turn more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that users have written about 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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This license enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was correct when this article was published. This may not be the actual price set by the product developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Plugin Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
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 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 where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which social media networks are working for your business.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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