Social interactions like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of 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 so many things change quickly on social media. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere 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 real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social community in the world. Research shows that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of 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 the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile 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, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search engine traffic. 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 irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, assess competitor activity and market dominance, spot opportunities for engagement, avert crises, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, businesses, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal monitoring 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 people including market researchers, marketing professionals, digital reputation management companies, social engagement and community staff, agencies, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various service providers have made available affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand allowing you to respond to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. For more details, go here:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and improving your social media presence.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the tool tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your task is simple … turn all the reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … turn all the 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 and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of over two thousand 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 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can significantly impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro installs like every plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to turn more reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WP users with many great features. Here are a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access updated information right on your WordPress admin bar, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Uses minimal server resources. Reports are generated fast, using little hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, category, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data 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 simple to use … just convert red squares into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that customers have published about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”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
Plugin Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Software Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This option lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on multiple websites that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was correct when this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the 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 rise 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 website’s ranking.
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 immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and shows you where and how to direct your efforts in order 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 WP admin area.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shave years off your social media marketing learning curve.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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