Social recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere 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 value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media community in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site 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 interacting on GooglePlus every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes 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 traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways 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)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or services on social media, be alerted to disasters, spot market opportunities, spy on your competition, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track activity on social media channels like blogs, internet forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., discussion boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 marketing professionals, market research, digital reputation management (ORM) agencies, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have created affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to track what consumers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about your brand or products so you can respond to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. Go here to learn more about this:
(Are you tracking social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and improving your social media presence online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your job is to turn more reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity show up 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 their metrics on “green”. According to the plugin developers, 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 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 and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Really Easy To Install
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP admin area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to turn all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social marketing campaigns require investing more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
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 SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WordPress users with many features. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View updated stats from your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrades. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal usage of resources. Social metrics reports are generated fast, consuming little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather and compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, category, or publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export data to 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 really simple to use … just turn reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are just some testimonials customers have published about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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 – Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to configure Social Metrics Pro on a single site. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This allows you to use Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the software is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals when determining 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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and shows them how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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