Social interactions like Facebook shares, comments, and likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, 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 for several years now.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their brand on social media 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 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. It has been estimated that one great post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
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 interacting on Google+ each month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search 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 irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users, measure the impact of campaigns, spot new market opportunities, and spy on your competitors. It can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
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, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include market research, marketing professionals, online reputation management (ORM) companies, agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately many providers have created a range of affordable and even free tools to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can react to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article about social media measurement tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that can affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc here:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet effective WordPress plugin for tracking social signals and growing your social media influence.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s objective is to convert more red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that anyone can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ 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”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed 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, improving your social media marketing can dramatically can have a dramatic impact on your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your administrator account and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to change all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to track and monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro 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 of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WP users with many great features. Below we have listed a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows updated stats from your WP dashboard, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Plugin suits even the smallest hosting. Reports are compiled fast, consuming little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory used to gather and compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & 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 post type, publishing date, category, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just turn all the reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials users have provided for the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
***
”I give Social Metrics a big thumbs up and I recommend it to anyone who’s serious about tracking their social sharing analytics.” James Johnson, Senior Editor at The Inquisitr
Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This enables you to use SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The price of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
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.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
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 website owners immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them where and how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to avoid wasting resources on over-optimized social media campaigns.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
***
***