Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s 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 tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “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 Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. It has been estimated that one great 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 business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search 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 each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
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 Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, 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 improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, measure the impact of campaigns, spot market opportunities, and spy on your competition. It can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, brands, businesses, or products.
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, typically carried out by various groups that include market research, marketing teams, digital reputation managers, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed many tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track what consumers are saying about your brand or products allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media tracking tools that are worth knowing about. To learn more about this go here:
(Are you searching for an effective way to track social signals?)
This article discusses a simple social media tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make improving your social media exposure online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your objective is simple … turn more reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with the highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin 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”. According to the plugin developers, they were able to notice 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 the plugin developers, improving your social marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, increased web traffic and increased revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
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 from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to turn all the red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social activity from social networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many features to site owners. Below we have listed a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to use in no time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access updated information right on your WP dashboard, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever new versions are released.
- Utilizes very little resources. The plugin generates reports in seconds, consuming minimal server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources used to gather 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 posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, category, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data: You can export data to 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 very simple to use … just change all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments 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 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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on one website only. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Edition – This enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for Social Metrics Pro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product 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 Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download The Product
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
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 immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you how to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to reduce your social media marketing learning curve.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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