Social interactions and recommendations 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 for several years now.
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. 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 full ‘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 sites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media network in the world. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of 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 plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted 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 great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using Google+ each week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search rankings and traffic. 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 visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of campaigns, avert crises, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, topics, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, social signal 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 market researchers, marketing professionals, online reputation management (ORM) companies, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different technology providers have developed a range of tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article listing over 30 social media monitoring tools that you may want to check out. For more details, go here:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs for monitoring social signals and improving your social media presence online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the system tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your task is to change more red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure 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 show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search engine rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Installation Is Easy
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to turn reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WordPress admin area.
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 a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to web site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Low server resource consumption. Reporting is in seconds, using minimal server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or by post authors.
- Export Data: You can export filtered 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 very simple to use … just convert reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have submitted for 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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This edition enables you to set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was correct when this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author 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 current pricing details here:
Additional Plugin Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals when determining a website’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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing campaigns and shows you how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social media marketing results professionally.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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