Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. Research shows that an average post on Facebook 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 importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all 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 each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (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 find ways to develop 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 to improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or services on social media, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users, and spot market opportunities. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social conversations and activity on social media channels like blogs, forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video/photo sharing sites, and user-generated content is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including market researchers, online reputation management (ORM) companies, marketing professionals, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have developed many affordable tools to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand or products allowing you to react to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
(Are you looking for an effective tool that can help you measure social signals?)
In this article, we look at a simple, yet highly effective social monitoring tool for a WordPress-based site and growing your social media influence.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s goal is to change reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most display 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 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 a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can significantly impact your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site 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 site:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your administrator section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s job is to convert more reds 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 need to be better optimized.
Track Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social 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 on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers WordPress users with many features. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Consumes minimal resources. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, using little hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter data however 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: You can export filtered, sorted 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 all reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have submitted for SocialMetricsPro:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Product Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Social Metrics Pro Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This edition enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This lets you use SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Price details for the SocialMetricsPro software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was correct when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Plugin
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 instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them where to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to learn how to use social signals to improve your search engine rankings.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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