Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team 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 perfect ‘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 tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. Research shows 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 Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that 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 second biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social 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:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, the number of people sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on GooglePlus a web page has, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search traffic and rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your presence on major social networking websites, 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)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, identify opportunities for engagement, and take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, brands, businesses, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, social media monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include marketing teams, online reputation management (ORM) companies, market research, agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various providers have created tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc. To learn more about this go here:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple social media monitoring tool for a WordPress-based web presence and improving your social media presence online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users increase their social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the system measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s objective is to turn more reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can operate … 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 or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ 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”. From these tests, 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, more traffic and increased revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Very Easy To Install
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s job is to turn all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to apply more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you monitor social activity from social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts 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 of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View updated stats from your WordPress dashboard, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. Update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal consumption of resources. Reports are compiled in seconds, using minimal server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, category, or by post authors.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just change more reds into greens!)
Testimonials From Customers
Here are a couple of the testimonials that users have published about Social Metrics Pro:
”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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
SocialMetricsPro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on one domain only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on multiple sites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account a range of social signals to help determine 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 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 an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to avoid wasting resources on over-optimized social media marketing campaigns.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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