Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook shares, comments, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account 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, 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 social signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 websites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social media network on the planet. Research shows that an average post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your site, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every 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 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, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus each year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, amount and growth rate 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 social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include desirable and undesirable 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 website owner, it’s important to not only grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media 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 brand’s overall visibility on social media, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, be alerted to impending crises, and identify opportunities for engagement. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social activity on social media channels like blogging, internet forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, etc., discussion boards, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including market research, marketing teams, digital reputation specialists, social media marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed many tools that facilitate the tracking of a broad range of social media channels, allowing you to identify what consumers are saying about your products or brand allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
Go here to learn more about social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out:
(Do you know how to effectively track your social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social media tracking tool for your web presence and improving your social media exposure.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s goal is simple … change all the red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin 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 their metrics on “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 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 higher search engine rankings, more traffic and more revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Social Metrics Pro installs just like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to turn all red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social 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 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!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers a number of features to WordPress users. Here are some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in no time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest information from your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrade functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications when new plugin updates are released.
- Utilizes minimal server resources. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, publishing date, post authors, or by 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 convert more red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Here are just some testimonials and feedback plugin users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
A step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Social Metrics Pro Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This license allows you to install SocialMetricsPro on multiple domains that you own. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing when this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines are now taking into account social signals to help determine 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 campaigns and guides you where to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing measurable.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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