Social interactions like Facebook comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their brand on social media 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a perfect ‘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 websites that provide value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your site, 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 when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(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 emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single 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 social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes 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 sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot potential market opportunities, and spy on the competition. It can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, businesses, topics, 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 research, online reputation management companies, marketing professionals, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many providers have created affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your brand allowing you to respond to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article where we explore many social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about. More information:
(Are you monitoring social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple plugin for WordPress users for tracking social signals and increasing your social media presence online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your goal is simple … turn red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn all the 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 plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can significantly impact your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Social Metrics Pro installs just like any other WP plugin. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to turn all the red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social campaigns require more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
SocialMetricsPro 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to use in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access the latest stats right on your WP admin bar, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updates. Update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. The plugin generates reports very quickly, consuming little server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, category, post authors, or by publishing date.
- 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are just some testimonials that plugin customers have written about the SocialMetricsPro 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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”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
Plugin Tips
A step-by-step guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license allows you to configure Social Metrics Pro on one site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License Edition – This license option allows you to set up SocialMetricsPro on all websites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for the SocialMetricsPro product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
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.
Get 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 how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how 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 directly from your WP admin area.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to see measurable results.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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