Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
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 its web spam team Matt Cutts 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 reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere 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 real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social networking 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 Google+ every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media 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 Google and Bing include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person sharing the URL is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on the competition, spot market opportunities, and avert impending crises. It can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, products, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor social media channels like blogs, internet forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., message boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 market researchers, marketing professionals, PR staff, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed many tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
Go here if you would like to learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social media signals and improving your social media exposure.
Our Featured WordPress Product Is …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s job is simple … change red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can can have a dramatic effect on your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs like any plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to turn all reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Track Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to centrally monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers many unique features to WordPress users. Below we have listed a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access the latest information right on your WordPress dashboard, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal use of hosting resources. Reporting is in seconds, consuming minimal server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server memory used to gather and compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or post type.
- 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just change all the reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials and comments customers have published about Social Metrics Pro:
“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
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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
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. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Social Metrics Pro Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on a single site. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This license enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals when determining website 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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and shows them where to direct their efforts in order 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 WordPress admin area.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to improve social visibility and see more of your keywords getting better rankings on search engines.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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