Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, +1s on GooglePlus, 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 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 assessing social media signals, 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 short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide true value tend to 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 media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. Research shows that one great 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 Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media 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 GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of 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 include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person sharing your URL is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, 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 rankings. These include desirable 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 visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, spy on your competition, identify market opportunities, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and avert disasters. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific businesses, topics, products, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social 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 market research, marketing teams, PR staff, sales teams, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have created affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing several social media measurement tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that could affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc. For more details, go here:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence.
Our Recommended WordPress Product Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin that is designed to help users grow their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … change all red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro 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”. 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing can affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast Installation
SocialMetricsPro installs just like any plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user account and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to turn all reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media 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 can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers site owners with many features. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View updated information from your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrades. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal consumption of server resources. The plugin generates reports in seconds, consuming little server resources. Report generation 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:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, post type, or category.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are a couple of the testimonials plugin customers have written 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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product License Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This enables you to use SocialMetricsPro on one website only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and guides them where and how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social media marketing campaigns.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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