Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. 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 summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ 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 GooglePlus each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, 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)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a site has, the number of people sharing your posts, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – 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 Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or services on social media, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, spy on the competition, measure the impact of campaigns, and spot opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to monitor conversations and activity on social media channels like blogs, internet forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., discussion groups, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 teams, market researchers, digital reputation management companies, agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many technology companies have developed tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify consumer behavior around your brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
Go here if you would like to learn more about social media measurement tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users grow their social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s job is to convert red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any website owner can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social media marketing can result in better search rankings, more traffic and more revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy, Quick & Simple
SocialMetricsPro installs just like every plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to convert all red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
SocialMetricsPro 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WP users with a number of great features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest information from your WP dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin even works on the smallest hosting configuration. The plugin generates social metrics reports very quickly, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, category, post type, or publishing date.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just convert all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are just some testimonials customers have written about SocialMetricsPro:
”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
SocialMetricsPro – Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This lets you run SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
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.
In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines now take into account 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 WordPress users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and guides them 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 directly from your WP dashboard.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social marketing results professionally.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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