Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 the 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 tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine.
Social Signals – Which Social 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 media community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining 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 next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus every month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, 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 social media-related signals that can influence search traffic and rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to grow 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 marketing to improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, avert impending crises, identify market opportunities, and assess competitor activity and market share. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific topics, brands, products, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social media 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 groups that include market research, marketing professionals, online reputation management companies, agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various service providers have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the tracking of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products allowing them to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article listing over 30 social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. For more details, go here:
(Do you know how to effectively measure social signals?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet highly effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the system tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your job is simple … turn all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any website owner can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts with highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of 3 months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can dramatically affect your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Ready To Use In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to turn all the red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to centrally monitor social media activity from social media networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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?
- 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!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers a number of great features to site owners. Below we have listed a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin works even on the smallest hosting configuration. Reporting is in seconds, using very little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just turn more red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials plugin users have written about 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
***
”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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This allows you to activate SocialMetricsPro on all websites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price at the time this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Product Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take into account social signals when determining a site’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 instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you how and where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save money on outsourcing your social campaigns or train your staff to manage your campaigns in-house.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
***
***