Social interactions like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking 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 media, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook 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 the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of monthly 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 emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, GooglePlus naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your 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 comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people sharing the URL, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has, amount and growth rate of +1s, 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 social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search traffic. 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 business 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 your social marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, spy on the competition, avert impending crises, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and identify market opportunities. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific topics, businesses, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social media 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 PR companies, market researchers, marketing teams, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various service providers have developed a range of affordable and even free tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article where we explore a number of social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. More information:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple social tracking plugin for WordPress and improving your social media presence.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users increase their social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s job is to change more red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 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 can result in better search rankings, more web traffic and more revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to turn all red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you monitor social media activity across leading networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers website owners with many features. Below we have listed just some:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information from your WP dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Low-resource consumption. Reports are compiled fast, using minimal server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources used to gather data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just turn reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have written about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Product Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license lets you install Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This enables you to set up Social Metrics Pro on multiple web sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download The Product
As mentioned earlier, 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. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and shows you how to direct your efforts in order to improve your 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 dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social marketing campaigns work for you.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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