Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, +1s on GooglePlus, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines are now taking into account social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. 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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential 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 site, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all 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 half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social site 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 interacting on Google+ each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones 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 shares, likes, and comments 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 tweeting, 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. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [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 grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of campaigns, and be alerted to impending crises. It can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, businesses, products, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of people including marketing professionals, PR agencies, market researchers, professional sales reps, social engagement and community personnel, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many providers have created tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict what customers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about your products or brand so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. Go here to learn more about this:
(Are you measuring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we discuss a simple social tracking plugin for your website and improving your social media exposure.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … turn all the red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of 3 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 noticed that their top 10 best performing sites saw an improvement of up to 360% more traffic, 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 campaigns can significantly affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to turn all reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WP dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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 a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro provides website owners with a number of great features. Below we have listed some of those features:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WordPress admin bar, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrading functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, post type, or category.
- Export Data To Excel: 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 turn red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”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
Useful Tips
A practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Licensing Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This license option lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software retails for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the plugin 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.
The Bottom Line
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take 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. 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 guides you how and where to direct your efforts in order 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 directly from your WP admin area.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save money on outsourcing your social marketing.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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