Social recommendations like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals when determining a website’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 its 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 too much 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 websites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. Research shows that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes 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, like Twitter andGooglePlus.
(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 plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, amount and authority 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 factors that can indirectly influence search rankings and traffic. These include desirable 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 important to not only develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, assess competitor activity, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users, and spot potential opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, topics, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to track social media 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 people including market research, marketing professionals, digital reputation management (ORM) specialists, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, enabling you to identify consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have created a comprehensive article where we explore many social media tracking tools that are worth knowing about. More info:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet highly effective social media tracking tool for a WordPress-based digital business presence and increasing your social media exposure.
Our Recommended WordPress Product Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your task is simple … convert all the red squares into greens.
(A system that any website owner can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares are colored 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+ websites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “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, improving your social media marketing can result in better search rankings, increased web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
Social Metrics Pro installs like any other WordPress plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to change all reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to monitor social activity from social networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WP users with many great features. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WP dashboard, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click updating. You can update SocialMetricsPro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal server resources usage. Social reports are compiled in seconds, consuming very little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server memory used to compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you 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, publishing date, post type, or category.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data 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 simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have published about Social Metrics Pro:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Social Metrics Pro – Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to use SocialMetricsPro on 1 domain only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This option enables you to configure Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software developer when you visit the plugin website 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
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals when determining website 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 immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you 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.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing measurable.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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