Social recommendations like Facebook shares, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account social signals when determining a site’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 assessing social media signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a full ‘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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social media network in the world. Research shows that one great post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million 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 readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are actively using Google+ every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search rankings and traffic. These include desirable and negative 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 of low quality by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, avert disasters, assess competitor activity, measure the impact of campaigns, and identify potential market opportunities. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, social 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 online reputation managers, marketing teams, market research, social marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify what consumers are saying about your products or brand so you can respond to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a comprehensive article listing many social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. Go here to learn more:
(Are you monitoring social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet highly effective social media monitoring plugin for a WordPress-based website and increasing your social media presence.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you improve your social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s objective is to convert all red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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”. From these tests, 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, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can positively affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to turn all red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social activity across leading social networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn.
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 this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers a number of features to web site owners. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in no time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest stats right on your WordPress admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. Update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Plugin uses minimal resources. The plugin generates reports in seconds, consuming minimal hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, post type, or category.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries in 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 really simple to use … just change all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials that users have submitted for SocialMetricsPro:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
***
”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
Plugin Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Plugin 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 money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This license allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single website. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This license allows you to configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Product
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s 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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and shows them where 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 right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
***
***