Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social 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 the web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, 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 to “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 naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, 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 andGoogle+.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each 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 volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your URL has, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as important as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or services on social media, identify new opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, and spy on the competition. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, social media signal 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 groups that include market research, online reputation management (ORM) companies, marketing teams, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately different providers have made available affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely manner.
We have created a detailed article where we explore several social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here for more info:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we discuss a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress-powered websites for tracking social signals and increasing your social media influence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your job is to turn all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system 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 display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of 2,000+ 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”. From these tests, 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, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can positively affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other WordPress plugin. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to change more red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social activity across leading social media networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to WP users. Here are just some of these:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Ready to use in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View updated information right on your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. Update SocialMetricsPro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Low-resource consumption. Reporting is in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post type, or by post authors.
- Export Data: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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 simple to use … just turn more reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials that users have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”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 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
Product Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a practical guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Edition – This option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on all websites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this content was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller 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 Plugin Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking 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 media marketing strategy and shows you where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal 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 make social media marketing measurable.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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