Social recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media 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 so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(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 Bing and Google track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people sharing the URL, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has accrued, amount and growth rate of +1s, 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 undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [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 grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, company, or products on social media, assess competitor activity, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, avert impending crises, and spot opportunities for engagement. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, products, topics, or brands.
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 people including PR staff, market research, marketing professionals, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of providers have created many affordable tools that facilitate the active tracking of a wide range of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can respond to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here to learn more about this:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet effective social tracking tool for WordPress and increasing your social media influence online.
Our Featured WordPress Plugin Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your job is to turn all the reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ websites over a period of 3 months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, they noticed 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search engine rankings, increased web traffic and increased revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just some 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 site:
Be Up And Running In No Time
SocialMetricsPro installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to convert more red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social activity across leading social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Digg.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns 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 just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro offers website owners with a number of great features. Below we have listed just some of those:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest information right on your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. 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 when a new version is released.
- Low-resource consumption. Reporting is fast, using very little server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, publishing date, post authors, or category.
- Export Data: 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 simple to use … just convert all reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that users have published about the SocialMetricsPro 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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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Tips
A step-by-step guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product License Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This license lets you install Social Metrics Pro on multiple domains that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin is selling for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer 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 current pricing details:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you how and where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social media marketing measurable.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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