Social interactions like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, 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, instead of 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 assessing social media signals, 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 short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “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 wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social media community on the planet. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses social 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 rankings of all social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest 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 emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting on Google+ every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your URL has accrued, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [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 presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, be alerted to impending crises, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of campaigns, and identify market opportunities. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, products, businesses, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to monitor social activity on social media channels like blogs, internet forums, social networking sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by a cross-section of people including online reputation management companies, market researchers, marketing professionals, social marketing agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately many providers have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a broad range of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your brand allowing you to respond to conversations and interact with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple plugin for WordPress websites for monitoring social signals and growing your social media influence online.
Let’s Review …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s job is simple … convert more red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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”. According to the plugin developers, 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can significantly affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to turn all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WordPress admin area.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides a number of great features to WP users. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays the latest information right on your WP dashboard, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or by post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data 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 really simple to use … just turn all the red squares into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have written about 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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”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
Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Software Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on 1 domain only. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This enables you to use Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product retails for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account social signals to help determine a site’s 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 marketing campaigns and guides you where and how 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 dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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