Social recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, likes, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, 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 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 own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, 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 the social sphere 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 sites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly 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 day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social 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 Google+ every month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, 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 URL has, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [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 monitor, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, spy on the competition, be alerted to disasters, and spot potential opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, brands, products, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track trends, social conversations, and social activity on social media channels like blogging, forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, etc., message boards, 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 people including marketing professionals, online reputation management companies, market researchers, agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately different service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to track consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article listing several social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc. Go here for more details:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple social media tracking tool for WordPress and growing your social media influence.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s job is to turn all the reds into greens.
(A system that anyone can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored 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 everything “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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to turn all reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Only Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social activity from social media networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn.
Social Metrics Pro 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 can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro offers a number of great features to web site owners. Below we have listed some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access the latest stats right on your WP admin bar, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click auto-update functionality. Update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Low-resource consumption. The plugin generates reports very quickly, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server resources used to compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter your data however 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 To Excel: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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 really simple to use … just turn all red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are just a few of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have written about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
“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
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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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to configure SocialMetricsPro on a single site. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License Edition – This license option enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of Social Metrics Pro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was correct when this article was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author 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 latest pricing details here:
Additional Plugin Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and guides them where and how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to track your social signals automatically.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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