Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media presence 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 the 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 more 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 sites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social network in the world. It has been estimated that an average post 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 the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses 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 GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of 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 day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount 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 online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus each week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments 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 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 site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competitors, be alerted to impending crises, and spot new opportunities for engagement. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social media 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 people including marketing professionals, PR companies, market researchers, professional sales reps, social engagement and community personnel, and social marketing agencies. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various providers have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify consumer behavior around your brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
Go here for a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns:
(Are you looking for an effective way to track social signals?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet highly effective WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and improving your social media presence.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users increase their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s job is simple … change more red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they were able to notice a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can significantly can have a dramatic impact on your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to change all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns require investing more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
SocialMetricsPro 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 SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro offers web site owners with many features. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated information from your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications when a new version is released.
- Minimal server resources consumption. Social reports are compiled in seconds, using minimal server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search 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 post type, publishing date, category, or post authors.
- Export Data: 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just change more reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that customers have published about the SocialMetricsPro 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
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”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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Current pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals when determining 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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them where and how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social marketing work for you.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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