Social interactions like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and 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 brand on social media 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 so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals 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 real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search results.
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 most dominant social network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online 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 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 every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social site, Google+ 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 socially on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, 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 Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on GooglePlus your web page has accrued, amount 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 factors that can influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (not as important as they once were, but still a factor) [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 develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity 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 dissatisfied customers, assess competitor activity, spot new market opportunities, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, topics, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor social media channels like blogging, forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video/photo sharing sites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 digital reputation management (ORM) agencies, market researchers, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, sales teams, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed a range of tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict what is being said online about their products or brands allowing them to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
Go here for a detailed article on social media measurement tools that you may want to check out:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the system measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your task is simple … turn all the red squares into greens.
(A system that any website owner can operate … turn all the 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 or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 their metrics on “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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can result in higher search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Installation Is Easy, Fast & Simple
SocialMetricsPro installs like every other plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to convert more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social media activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro 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?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers many unique features to web site owners. Below we have listed some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses minimal hosting resources. Reporting is very quickly, using little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post authors, or by post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just turn all reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that users have submitted for 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
***
”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 step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Software Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This lets you install SocialMetricsPro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This license option enables you to set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the software is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product 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 growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals when determining website 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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and shows them how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which social networks are working for your business.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***