Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking 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. 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 short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value tend to 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 when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. Research shows that an average 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 site, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes social 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 Twitter andGooglePlus.
(Number of 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 has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted 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 online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus each week. 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, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ your site page has accrued, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search traffic and rankings. 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 visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, products, or brand on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, spot market opportunities, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and be alerted to disasters. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, brands, products, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, social monitoring 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 management companies, marketing professionals, market research, sales teams, social engagement and community staff, and social marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have made available many tools that facilitate the active tracking of a wide range of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing several social media monitoring tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. Go here to learn more:
(Are you looking for an effective tool that can help you measure social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress-powered websites for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is to convert reds into greens.
(A system that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with the highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of 3 months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “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 marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, more web traffic and increased revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin section and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to change all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track The Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest directly from your WP dashboard.
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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers website owners with a number of great features. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. Access updated stats right on your WordPress admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Utilizes very little resources. Reports are generated fast, consuming minimal hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, post authors, category, 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just change all reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin customers have written about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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
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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
SocialMetricsPro – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option enables you to set up SocialMetricsPro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This lets you run SocialMetricsPro on multiple sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product retails for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and guides you how and where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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