Social interactions like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
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 web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance 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, GooglePlus naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus each week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has amassed, number and authority of +1s, 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 factors that can 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 website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze social marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or services on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on the competition, spot market opportunities, and take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers. It can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, products, topics, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social media channels like blogs, forums, social networking sites, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, etc., discussion groups, 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 a cross-section of people including market researchers, online reputation management (ORM) specialists, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various service providers have made available tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand or products so you can respond to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools and technologies that you may want to check out here:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media presence.
Our Featured WordPress Product Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to make improving your social media exposure uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your task is simple … turn all red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, more traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to turn more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social marketing campaigns require more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to monitor social activity across leading social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Digg, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
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?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WordPress users with many unique features. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information from your WP admin bar, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Consumes minimal resources. The plugin generates social metrics reports very quickly, consuming little hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or by publishing date.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just convert more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin customers have written about SocialMetricsPro:
”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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”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 – Useful Tips
A step-by-step 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.
Product Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to use Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This lets you install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
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 you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and shows you where and 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 WP dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing campaigns work for you.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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