Social interactions like Facebook comments, shares, and likes, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media 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 its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a full ‘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 real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social media community on the planet. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites.
(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 on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ 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 interacting socially on Google+ every month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, 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 rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [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 develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, spot opportunities for engagement, assess competitor activity and mind share, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and be alerted to crises. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, topics, brands, or products.
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 a cross-section of people including market researchers, digital reputation management (ORM) companies, marketing professionals, agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately many providers have developed many affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in a timely fashion.
We have created a detailed article listing many social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here for more details:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social monitoring plugin for a WordPress-based online presence and growing your social media influence.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the tool tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. Your job is simple … convert all the reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure 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 that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin 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 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Easy Installation
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to convert all red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to track and monitor social media activity from networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest.
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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers web site owners with many great features. Here are some of those features:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows updated information right on your WP dashboard, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrade functionality. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Minimal consumption of resources. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, consuming very little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post authors, post type, or publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just turn more red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials customers have published about Social Metrics Pro:
“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 (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Product Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on a single website. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This license option allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and guides you how and where to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social media campaigns.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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