Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook comments, likes, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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. 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 social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “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 display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social media community on the planet. Research shows that one great post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is 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 influence search rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest 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 tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the volume 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 social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (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 website owner, it’s important to not only 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.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competitors, spot market opportunities, and avert disasters. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social media monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various groups that include marketing professionals, market research, PR companies, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, enabling you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that can affect your business,etc. To learn more about this go here:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
In this article, we look at a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs for tracking social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Our Recommended WordPress Product Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your job is to convert all the red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that receive the most shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand websites 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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, increased traffic and more revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Really Easy To Install
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to change all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity across leading networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social 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 this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are just some of these features:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated information right on your WordPress admin bar, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. You can update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin works even on the smallest hosting configuration. Reporting is in seconds, consuming minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to compile the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you 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, post authors, category, or post type.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered, sorted 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 really simple to use … just change all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials customers have published about SocialMetricsPro:
”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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”If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve.” Goes one of the most important sayings in business. And this is particularly true for tracking of your social mentions I found. There were two things that helped me a great deal to increase sharing after installing Social Metrics: First, I was able to see that some of my articles would perform much better on networks I wasn’t particularly using, such as StumbleUpon for example. Secondly, I could filter out the best performing content more easily and analyse what makes my readers share. Since then I have focused strongly on producing and replicating those posts that performed best.” Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Edition – This license option lets you run Social Metrics Pro on unlimited domains that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price at the time this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
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 users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them where to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your social media marketing learning curve.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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