Social recommendations like Facebook comments, shares, and likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines now take into account various social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. Google’s own head of the web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, 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 summary, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, 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 next 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 emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- 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 your site has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your web page has accrued, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and assess competitor activity and mind share. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, brands, topics, or products.
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 market researchers, marketing teams, PR staff, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the tracking of a broad range of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict what is being said online about your brand allowing you to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
If you want to learn more about social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc, see this article:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple social monitoring plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … turn more red squares into greens.
(A system that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 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 media marketing can positively affect your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your admin user section and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to convert all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns require more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social activity across leading social networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WP dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers site owners with many great features. Below we have listed a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Ready to start using in no time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays the latest stats from your WP admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Low-resource consumption. Social reports are generated very quickly, using very little hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or post type.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert all the red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Plugin Customers
Below are just a few of the testimonials that users have submitted regarding 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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license allows you to activate SocialMetricsPro on one website only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This option enables you to use SocialMetricsPro on all web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals when determining 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 campaigns and guides you where and how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social media marketing measurable.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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