Social recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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. 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 perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide 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 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 largest social network in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach over 100,000 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 to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, GooglePlus 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 actively using Google+ each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search traffic and rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop 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 help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, spy on the competition, spot potential opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and avert impending crises. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, businesses, topics, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to monitor conversations and activity on social media 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 researchers, PR companies, marketing professionals, sales teams, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed many tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to track consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a comprehensive article listing many social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. More information:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for tracking social media signals and increasing your social media presence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the system tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … change all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with the highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ sites 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 were able to notice 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can result in better search engine rankings, more traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to convert all the red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which campaigns require more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to track and monitor social activity across leading social networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers a number of great features to website owners. Here are some of these features:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information from your WP dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrading functionality. Update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Minimal usage of server resources. The plugin can generate reports fast, using little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, category, post authors, or by publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export data 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 all reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have written about Social Metrics Pro:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
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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
Plugin Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This license option enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on one web site only. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Current pricing for the Social Metrics Pro product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details here:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how and where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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