Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 social signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals 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 websites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community in the world. Research shows that one great 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 social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus each week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sharing the posts, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has amassed, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search traffic and rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, identify opportunities for engagement, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including market research, digital reputation management companies, marketing professionals, social engagement and community staff, professional sales reps, and social marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately many providers have created a range of affordable and even free tools to facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand so you can react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article where we explore many social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. More information:
(Are you measuring social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Let’s Review …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s objective is to turn more reds into greens.
(A system that any user can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can significantly affect your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Installation Is Easy
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to turn all the reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns need more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity from social networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Digg.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro offers site owners with many great features. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WP dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrading functionality. Update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. The plugin can generate social metrics reports fast, consuming very little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to gather and compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or post type.
- 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 really simple to use … just convert all red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and comments users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
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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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a practical, step-by-step guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited web sites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals to help determine 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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and shows you how and where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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