Social recommendations like Facebook comments, shares, and likes, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of 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 signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of 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 on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social media 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 include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as important as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, be alerted to crises, spot opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of campaigns, and assess competitor activity and mind share. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, products, topics, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track 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 PR staff, marketing professionals, market researchers, sales teams, social engagement and community personnel, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have developed many tools to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media tracking tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. If you would like to know more about this here:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media presence.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the system measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s task is simple … change more reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user 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 highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of 3 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in better search engine rankings, increased web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other WP plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to turn all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Track Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally monitor social media activity from social media networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WP 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 SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro provides a number of features to website owners. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in no time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays the latest information from your WordPress dashboard, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when a new version is released.
- Plugin uses minimal resources. The plugin can generate reports fast, consuming little server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post authors, or post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries in 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 simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials that plugin users have published about Social Metrics Pro:
”Our entire marketing strategy relies on social media. Each post on the site has viral potential, but we needed one place to see which social networks are performing the best for us…We went ahead and got the PRO Version of Social Metrics.” Syed Balkhi, Founder of List25 and WPBeginner.com
***
”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
Plugin Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to configure SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Edition – This lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on multiple sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Social Metrics Pro product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them where and how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to monitor which social media networks are working for your business.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***