Social recommendations like Facebook shares, likes, 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 since late 2010.
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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team 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 full ‘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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media community on the planet. Research shows that an average post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine 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 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
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 Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, number and growth rate of +1s, 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 indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to 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, measure the impact of campaigns, take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, spy on your competitors, and identify market opportunities. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, brands, topics, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social media channels like blogging, forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., discussion boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 marketing professionals, market researchers, online reputation managers, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many service providers have created tools and solutions to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track what is being said online about your brand or products allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely manner.
If you want to learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives, refer to this article:
(Are you searching for an effective tool that can help you measure your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and improving your social media exposure online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … change more red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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”. From these tests, 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can positively can have a positive effect on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Social Metrics Pro installs just like any WordPress plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to change reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and where to optimize.
Track Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to track and monitor social media activity from networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP admin area.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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 of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WP users with many great features. Here are just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest information from your WP admin bar, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. Update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. Reporting is very quickly, using minimal hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or post authors.
- Export Data: 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 simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials that customers 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)
Social Metrics Pro – Tips
A step-by-step guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License Edition – This allows you to use SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Current pricing for Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the product 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.
Get This Product
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 the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro 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 to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to learn how to use social signals to get better search rankings.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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