Social interactions like +1s on Google+, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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 assessing social media signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly 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 each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social signals, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(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 a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 influence search traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social media marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your services, company, or brand on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, spy on your competition, identify market opportunities, and avert crises. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, businesses, topics, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various groups that include digital reputation managers, marketing teams, market research, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products allowing you to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here to learn more about this:
(Can you track social signals effectively?)
In this article, we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media influence.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you improve your social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s goal is simple … convert more red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can impact your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator account and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s job is to convert all red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WordPress users with a number of features. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to use in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View updated stats from your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. Social reports are generated very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources used to gather the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post authors, publishing date, or by post type.
- 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just convert reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are a couple of the testimonials that customers have published about the Social Metrics Pro 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
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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 Plugin – Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This edition allows you to use SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This enables you to run Social Metrics Pro on multiple web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was correct at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account 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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and shows them how and where to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social media campaigns.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
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