Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
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 own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide true 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 Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. It has been estimated that one great post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus 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 Google+ every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, 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 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 poor quality by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your services, company, or brand on social media, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, assess competitor activity and mind share, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and identify new market opportunities. It can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific businesses, topics, products, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, 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 people including marketing professionals, online reputation managers, market research, professional sales reps, agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, small 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 various technology companies have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, allowing companies to track what consumers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their brands or products so they can react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media measurement tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that could affect your business,etc. Go here to learn more:
(Are you searching for an effective way to track social signals?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for tracking social media signals and increasing your social media influence.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users grow their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your goal is to turn all the reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, they were able to notice 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 media marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Social Metrics Pro installs just like any WP plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to turn all the red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track The Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Digg, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers website owners with many great features. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows the latest information from your WP admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications when new versions are released.
- Minimal use of hosting resources. Social reports are compiled very quickly, using little server resources. The tool also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or by publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered, sorted data and custom queries in 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just turn all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are some of the testimonials customers have published about SocialMetricsPro:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
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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
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited domains that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was correct 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 plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
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.
In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing campaigns and guides you how 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 WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shave years off your social media marketing learning curve.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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