Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account 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, instead of 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 so many things change quickly on social media. 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social network in the world. Research shows that an average 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 power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, 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 largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes 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 (high profile users), how many people follow you, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate 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 social media-related factors that can influence search traffic and rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, spot potential opportunities for engagement, avert impending crises, assess competitor activity, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, businesses, brands, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social media 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 groups that include marketing teams, market researchers, online reputation management companies, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various providers have created affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article listing several social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. For more information, go here:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple social media tracking tool for WordPress and improving your social media exposure online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make improving your social media exposure uncomplicated. 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 task is simple … turn reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can result in higher search rankings, more traffic and increased revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to convert all the red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know where to invest more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to centrally monitor social activity from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro 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 of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many great features to WP users. Below we have listed some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access the latest information from your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click auto-upgrading functionality. You can update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Low server resource consumption. Social metrics reports are generated very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort 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 type, or post authors.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries in 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 very simple to use … just change all red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Customers
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin customers 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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”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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This allows you to activate Social Metrics Pro on 1 domain only. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this review was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
The Bottom Line
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro 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 campaigns and shows them where and how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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