Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts 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 more 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 websites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social media network on the planet. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your site, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus a URL has, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate 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 traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or services on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, identify new market opportunities, assess competitor activity, and avert disasters. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
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 groups that include marketing professionals, online reputation specialists, market researchers, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have made available tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands allowing them to react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a detailed article listing many social media tracking tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc. Go here for more information:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
In this article, we look at a simple, yet highly effective WordPress plugin for tracking social signals and growing your social media influence online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is to convert more red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most show up 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 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”. From these tests, 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in higher search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Easy To Install And Implement. Ready To Use In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other WP plugin. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator login and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to change all reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track The Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social activity across leading social media networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
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 of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides a number of features to WP users. Here are a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest information right on your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Plugin uses very little resources. Reporting is in seconds, consuming minimal server resources. Reports also display the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post authors, or post type.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just change more reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have provided for the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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
***
”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
Useful Tips
A practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license allows you to activate SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This edition lets you use Social Metrics Pro on unlimited sites that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was current at the time this review was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
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.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking 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. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them where and how to direct their efforts in order 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 right from your WP dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to see measurable results.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***