Social recommendations like Facebook shares, likes, and comments, +1s on GooglePlus, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to social signals 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 websites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. Research shows that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your 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 website 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 single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting on Google+ each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, 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 signals that can indirectly influence search rankings. These include desirable and undesirable 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 not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, company, or brand on social media, spy on the competition, be alerted to crises, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and identify opportunities for engagement. It can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, 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 groups that include digital reputation management (ORM) specialists, market research, marketing professionals, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different service providers have developed affordable tools that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article about social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about here:
(Are you measuring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we discuss a simple social media monitoring tool for WordPress and improving your social media exposure.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s task is to turn reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three 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, improving your social marketing can result in better search engine rankings, increased web traffic and increased revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro installs just like any regular plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to turn all reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track The Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon 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 of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides a number of features to WP users. Below we have listed a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated stats from your WP dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updating. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when a new version is released.
- Minimal server resources consumption. Social metrics reports are compiled very quickly, consuming very little server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, publishing date, category, or by post authors.
- 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just convert all the red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just some testimonials that plugin customers 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
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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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Tips
A practical guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Social Metrics Pro Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on one site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License Edition – This license lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on all the websites that you own. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
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 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 you instant feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and guides you how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to monitor which social networks are working for your business.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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