Social recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media presence 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 social media, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a perfect ‘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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of 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 single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- 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 URL has, the authority of the person sharing your URL, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a URL has amassed, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, assess competitor activity and market share, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, and measure the impact of campaigns. It can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track social activity on social media channels like blogs, internet forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion groups, video 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 various groups that include PR companies, market researchers, marketing professionals, social engagement and community staff, agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can react to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing a number of social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about. More info:
(Can you monitor your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective social media monitoring tool for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you improve your social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your job is to turn all the red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can significantly can have a dramatic effect on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Installation Is Easy & Fast
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to convert more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to apply more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social activity from networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media 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 of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers a number of great features to website owners. Below we have listed some of these features:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access updated information right on your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. Update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Plugin suits even the smallest hosting. Reporting is very quickly, consuming very little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And 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 publishing date, post authors, post type, or category.
- Export Data: 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just convert all reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials plugin users have published 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
***
”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 – Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license allows you to set up SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License Edition – This allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on multiple web sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account a range of social signals to help determine a site’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 shows you how to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
For more details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***