Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, comments, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and 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 social presence 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 signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a perfect ‘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 results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social network in the world. Research shows 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 website, you should not 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, Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a site has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competitors, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users, and identify market opportunities. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, products, topics, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social activity on social media channels like blogging, internet forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms, discussion groups, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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, PR companies, marketing professionals, social media marketing agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed tools that facilitate the monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand so you can react to conversations and interact with online users in a timely manner.
We have created a detailed article where we explore over 30 social media measurement tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. More info:
(Are you searching for an effective way to measure social signals?)
This article discusses a simple social tracking tool for WordPress and improving your social media presence online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help you improve your social media exposure online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your goal is simple … turn all reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand sites over a period of three 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, increased traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Go To Work In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro installs just like every other plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin area and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s job is to turn all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to apply more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track The Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, and LinkedIn directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
Social Metrics Pro provides website owners with many features. Here are just some of these features:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrading functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification when new versions are released.
- Minimal consumption of hosting resources. Reports are generated in seconds, using little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just turn more reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments customers have written about SocialMetricsPro:
“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 Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Product Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This enables you to use Social Metrics Pro on one site only. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This lets you install SocialMetricsPro on all the sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The price of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this article was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and 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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and shows them how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save money on outsourcing your social marketing campaigns.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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