Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere 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 true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community in the world. Research shows 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, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on Google+ every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, assess competitor activity and market dominance, identify potential opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of campaigns, and avert crises. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable information 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 conversations and social activity on social media 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 market researchers, marketing professionals, digital reputation management (ORM) agencies, sales teams, social engagement and community staff, and agencies. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a wide range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify what consumers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their brands or products so they can respond to conversations and interact with online users in a timely fashion.
Go here if you want to learn more social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple social monitoring plugin for your online business and increasing your social media exposure online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users grow their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s goal is to turn more reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any website owner can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ websites 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 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 marketing campaigns can result in higher search engine rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Installation Is Easy
SocialMetricsPro installs like any regular WordPress plugin. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to change more reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to track and monitor social activity from social networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Digg.
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 can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WP users with many features. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. Access updated stats from your WordPress admin bar, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin works even on the smallest hosting configuration. Reporting is very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or post authors.
- Export Data: 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback users have published about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
Plugin Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on a single web site. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License Edition – This license allows you to use SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase the Social Metrics Pro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product developer when you visit the 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, 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 users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and guides them how and where to improve their 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 Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to improve social visibility and see more of your keywords getting better rankings on search engines.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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