Social interactions like Facebook comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “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 naturally wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your site, don’t 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, 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 next largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
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 on Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a site has, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [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 social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, company, or services on social media, spy on your competition, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied customers, spot potential opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
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, typically carried out by a cross-section of people including digital reputation management (ORM) agencies, market researchers, marketing professionals, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed many tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
Go here if you want to learn more social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … convert all red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ websites 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 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, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in higher search rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy, Fast & Simple
Social Metrics Pro installs like every WordPress plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to turn more reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know which social marketing campaigns need you to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social activity from social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WordPress users with many great features. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View the latest stats from your WordPress admin bar, add socially popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Minimal hosting resources use. Reporting is fast, using minimal server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter information 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: 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 simple to use … just convert more red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have published about Social Metrics Pro:
”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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”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)
Useful Tips
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) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
In Conclusion
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. Social Metrics Pro 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 campaigns and shows you how and where 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 right from your WP admin area.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social marketing measurable.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
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