Social interactions like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account various social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
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 tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘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 value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media network in the world. It has been estimated that one great post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your site, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites worth getting to know, like 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 Pay Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- 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 a web page has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ your web page has, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable 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 of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or products on social media, spy on the competition, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot opportunities for engagement, and avert impending crises. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, businesses, products, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, social media signal 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 research, PR agencies, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article on social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out. For more details, go here:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
This article explores a simple social media tracking tool for a WordPress-based website and growing your social media influence.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s goal is to turn all reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 their metrics on “green”. From these tests, they noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 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 media marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, increased web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro installs just like any regular plugin. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to convert red squares into greens. The plugin 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 Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social activity across leading networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest directly from your WordPress admin area.
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 a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated stats from your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when new versions are released.
- Minimal server resources usage. The plugin can generate social metrics reports very quickly, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, publishing date, post authors, or by category.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered data and custom queries 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just convert red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that customers have submitted regarding 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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”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
Useful Tips
A 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) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Product Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on one site only. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This edition enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on all websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was current at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro 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 where and how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social marketing results professionally.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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