Social interactions like Facebook likes, comments, and shares, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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 so many things change quickly on social media. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social community in the world. Research shows 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 Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest 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 online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social 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 actively using GooglePlus each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes 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.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a site page has, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can influence search traffic and rankings. 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 site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, spot market opportunities, be alerted to impending crises, spy on your competition, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, social media 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 professionals, PR companies, social engagement and community staff, professional sales reps, and agencies. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many providers have made available many affordable tools to facilitate the active tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand or products allowing you to react to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. For more details:
(Are you looking for an effective tool that can help you measure social signals?)
This article discusses a simple social media monitoring plugin for a WordPress-based digital business presence and improving your social media exposure.
Our Featured WordPress Product …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to make growing your social media influence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your job is to convert 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 with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ 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 were able to notice a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, increased traffic and more revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Use In No Time
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to change all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to centrally track and monitor social activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest directly from your WordPress admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to 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 SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows updated information from your WP admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updating. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal hosting resources usage. Reporting is fast, consuming minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources used to compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, publishing date, or by category.
- Export Data: You can export data to 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 really simple to use … just convert all the red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials customers have submitted regarding 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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”I give Social Metrics a big thumbs up and I recommend it to anyone who’s serious about tracking their social sharing analytics.” James Johnson, Senior Editor at The Inquisitr
Product Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This allows you to run Social Metrics Pro on a single website. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives website owners immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to track your social signals automatically.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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