Social recommendations like Facebook 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 website owners to build their social media presence 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 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 social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, 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 GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each 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 amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ 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 interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying 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 a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a site has, the number of people sharing your information, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ your web page has amassed, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate 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 indirectly influence search traffic and rankings. 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 of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, assess competitor activity and market share, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, identify new opportunities for engagement, and help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, brands, products, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor online conversations and activity on social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including digital reputation management (ORM) companies, marketing teams, market research, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various providers have created tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to track consumer behavior around their brands so they can react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
Go here for a detailed article on social media tracking tools that are worth checking out and knowing about:
(Do you know how to effectively measure social signals?)
This article explores a simple WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and increasing your social media presence.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is simple … change reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any website owner can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand sites 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search engine rankings, more web traffic and more revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to turn reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns need you to invest more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Digg directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro 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 on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many unique features to web site owners. Below we have listed some of those:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest information from your WP admin bar, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-updating functionality. Update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Plugin even works on the smallest hosting configuration. Reporting is in seconds, using little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, publishing date, or by post authors.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
Testimonials From Customers
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback users have submitted for SocialMetricsPro:
”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
SocialMetricsPro – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This allows you to set up SocialMetricsPro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This edition lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product retails for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the website and there may be 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.
Download This Product
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 instant feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and shows you where and how 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 right from your WP admin area.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized networks.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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