Social recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, shares, and 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 for several years now.
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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 websites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social network 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, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
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 interacting on GooglePlus every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine 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 of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business 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, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, spy on the competition, be alerted to impending crises, measure the impact of campaigns, and spot opportunities for engagement. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking 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 people including marketing professionals, market research, digital reputation management (ORM) agencies, sales teams, social engagement and community staff, and social marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various service providers have created affordable tools that facilitate the tracking of a wide spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands allowing them to react to conversations and interact with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. For more details:
(Do you know how to effectively measure social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress-driven sites for tracking social signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin that is designed to make improving your social media exposure 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 turn more red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … simply 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 display 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”. According to the plugin developers, 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to change all red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally monitor social activity from networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Digg, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
SocialMetricsPro 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 of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed 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 unique features. Below we have listed some:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WP dashboard, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click auto-updating functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when new versions are released.
- Plugin uses minimal resources. Reports are generated very quickly, using little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources used to gather data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, category, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just change all the red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just some testimonials that customers have published about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
“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
Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you run SocialMetricsPro on a single site. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This option allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on multiple sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product retails for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Plugin Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and 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. 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 shows you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to reduce your social media marketing learning curve.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***