Social recommendations like Facebook comments, shares, and likes, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social 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 the social sphere 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 true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 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 online business strategy, as Google uses 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 Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
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 Google+ each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of 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 Bing and Google track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant 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 to help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, identify market opportunities, spy on the competition, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and be alerted to impending crises. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, topics, products, or businesses.
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 various people including marketing teams, market researchers, PR staff, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of service providers have made available affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to track consumer behavior around their brands or products allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article listing over 30 social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that could affect your business,etc. Go here for more info:
(Do you know how to effectively track your social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social media signals and improving your social media presence online.
Our Recommended WordPress Product Is …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s objective is simple … convert all the reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can significantly affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here are just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your administrator login and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to turn more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
Social Metrics Pro 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 of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are a few:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access updated information from your WP dashboard, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update SocialMetricsPro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever a new version is released.
- Minimal usage of server resources. Reporting is fast, consuming minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, post authors, category, or publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered 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 simple to use … just convert reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials 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 showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on one site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This license option enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Product
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 marketing campaigns and shows you where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shave years off your social media marketing learning curve.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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