Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account various social signals when determining 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 its 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 reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank 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 active users, Facebook is the most influential social media network in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your site, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other 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 half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(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 like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a site page has, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, assess competitor activity and market dominance, be alerted to impending crises, spot opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including market research, online reputation management (ORM) specialists, marketing teams, social media marketing agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of service providers have developed many affordable tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a wide spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict what consumers are saying about your products or brand so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing many social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. To learn more, visit this page:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Our Featured WordPress Plugin Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is to turn all reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ 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”. From these tests, 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, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search engine rankings, increased web traffic and increased revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to convert red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to centrally track and monitor social media activity from social media networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP admin area.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated information from your WP dashboard, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updating. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Low-resource consumption. Reporting is in seconds, using minimal server resources. Reports also include the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, category, or by publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered 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 convert all the red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback customers have provided for Social Metrics Pro:
”Our entire marketing strategy relies on social media. Each post on the site has viral potential, but we needed one place to see which social networks are performing the best for us…We went ahead and got the PRO Version of Social Metrics.” Syed Balkhi, Founder of List25 and WPBeginner.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
Product Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This allows you to activate Social Metrics Pro on multiple websites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Plugin Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals when determining website ranking.
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 users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and shows them how and where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to track your social signals automatically.
For full details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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