Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, +1s on Google+, 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 assessing social media signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites 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 Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media network in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 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 Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social 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 actively using GooglePlus each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, assess competitor activity and market share, spot potential opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of campaigns, and take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, topics, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track activity on social media channels like blogs, forums, social networking sites, 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 research, PR companies, marketing teams, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different providers have created many affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict what consumers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about their products or brands allowing them to react to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a detailed article listing several social media measurement tools and technologies that you may want to check out. More information:
(Can you measure social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple social media tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is to convert all the 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. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed 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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In No Time
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to convert more reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social marketing campaigns need more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Pinterest 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 of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WordPress users with a number of features. Here are a few:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest information right on your WP dashboard, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Plugin uses minimal resources. The plugin can generate reports very quickly, using very little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, post type, or category.
- 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 simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Customers
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have submitted for 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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”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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with 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).
Social Metrics Pro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to set up SocialMetricsPro on one domain only. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This allows you to configure Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing 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 latest pricing information here:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
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 the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users 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 users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to improve social media visibility and see more of your keywords getting ranked on search engines.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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