Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, instead of 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “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 ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. Research shows that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be 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, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social networking 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 GooglePlus every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your web page has accrued, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate 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 signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, be alerted to disasters, identify opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and assess competitor activity. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social activity on social media channels like blogging, forums, social networking sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various groups that include marketing teams, digital reputation specialists, market researchers, social engagement and community staff, professional sales reps, and social marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different providers have made available many affordable tools that facilitate the active monitoring of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict what customers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their products or brands allowing them to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc. Go here to learn more about this:
(Can you measure social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple plugin for WordPress-powered sites for monitoring social signals and growing your social media influence.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s job is simple … change all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand sites 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 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can positively affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Quick Installation
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to turn all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to track and monitor social activity across leading networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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 can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers WordPress users with many features. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrading functionality. You can update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Utilizes minimal hosting resources. Reporting is very quickly, using minimal server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory used to compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post type, or post authors.
- 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just change all red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Product Customers
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”Our entire marketing strategy relies on social media. Each post on the site has viral potential, but we needed one place to see which social networks are performing the best for us…We went ahead and got the PRO Version of Social Metrics.” Syed Balkhi, Founder of List25 and WPBeginner.com
***
”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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Useful Tips
A step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin 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, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This edition allows you to use Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License Edition – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of the Social Metrics Pro software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product site 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 Plugin Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals to help determine website 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 instant feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and shows them where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save money on outsourcing your social marketing campaigns.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***