Social recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account a range of social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media presence 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 social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search 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 most influential social media community in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, 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 when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus 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 day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using Google+ every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(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 like Google and Bing 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 retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your site page has, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, spot potential opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competitors, and avert disasters. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track social media channels like blogging, forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., message boards, video sites, 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 specialists, marketing professionals, market research, social engagement and community personnel, professional sales reps, and social marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to track what is being said online about their brands so they can react to conversations and interact with online users in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article where we explore a number of social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. Go here to learn more:
(Are you monitoring social signals effectively?)
In this article, we discuss a simple WordPress plugin for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your job is simple … change all the reds into greens.
(A system that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites 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 were able to notice 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, improving your social media marketing can affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin user area and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to turn reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to track and monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to 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 SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro offers WordPress users with a number of features. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to use in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information right on your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrade functionality. Update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal usage of server resources. Reports are generated fast, consuming minimal server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, category, post authors, or by publishing date.
- 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 more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
“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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”I give Social Metrics a big thumbs up and I recommend it to anyone who’s serious about tracking their social sharing analytics.” James Johnson, Senior Editor at The Inquisitr
SocialMetricsPro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license option lets you run SocialMetricsPro on a single site. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. 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 strategy and guides you how 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 WP admin area.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to use social signals to improve your search rankings.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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