Social interactions like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, 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, 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 so many things change quickly on social media. 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 true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social media network in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites, like Google+ and Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every 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 Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social signals, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search engine traffic and 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 of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to 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 marketing can help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, identify market opportunities, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, topics, brands, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track social media channels like blogs, internet forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, 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, often carried out by various groups that include PR staff, market researchers, marketing professionals, social marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different providers have developed many affordable tools that facilitate the active monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media monitoring tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives here:
(Are you looking for an effective tool to help you measure your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social signals and improving your social media exposure online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s objective is to convert red squares into greens.
(A system that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand sites 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 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can significantly impact your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below we have listed just a few 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:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs like any plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to change all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays updated stats right on your WordPress admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-updating functionality. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin uses minimal resources. The plugin can generate social metrics reports in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data in 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 simple to use … just change red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials plugin users have provided for the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited web sites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
The Bottom Line
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. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives website owners immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social media marketing work for you.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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