Social recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media presence 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 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 short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. Research shows that one great post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses 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 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 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social sites 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 that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including the following:
- 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 web page has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your services, company, or brand on social media, avert disasters, identify potential market opportunities, spy on your competition, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, products, businesses, 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, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include market researchers, marketing teams, PR companies, sales teams, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately a number of providers have made available affordable tools that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
If you want to learn more about social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out, see this article:
(Do you know how to effectively measure social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple social tracking tool for WordPress and improving your social media exposure.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s objective is to turn red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that anyone can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to turn all the reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to track and monitor social activity from social media networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Pinterest directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. View updated stats from your WP admin bar, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Uses very little resources. Social reports are compiled very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, post authors, or category.
- Export Data To Excel: 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that users have written about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”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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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you run Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This license lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account various social signals when determining a site’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 instant feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and guides you how and where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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