Social recommendations like Facebook shares, likes, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social 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 own web spam team 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 reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media 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 is buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGooglePlus.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using Google+ each week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a URL has accrued, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate 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 engine 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 of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied customers, assess competitor activity and mind share, identify opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, products, topics, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, social 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 people including market research, marketing teams, online reputation specialists, professional sales reps, agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately many technology companies have developed affordable tools to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track what consumers are saying about your brand or products so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
To learn more about social media measurement tools that you may want to check out, see this article:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
This article explores a simple social tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media exposure.
Our Featured WordPress Plugin Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence 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 objective is simple … convert more reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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”. 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, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
For more details go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Use In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs like any other plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to turn reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro 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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal server resources use. Metric reports are compiled in seconds, using little hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or by post authors.
- 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just change all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have submitted for SocialMetricsPro:
”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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”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
Product Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on one domain only. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to 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 you instant feedback on the success of your social media marketing campaigns and shows you how and where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to track your social signals automatically.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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