Social interactions like +1s on Google+, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take into account social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social presence 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 signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘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 true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook 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 importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of monthly 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 each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence 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 single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of 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 each month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot potential opportunities for engagement, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and avert disasters. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, businesses, brands, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social activity on social media channels like blogging, forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms, discussion groups, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content 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 market researchers, online reputation management companies, marketing professionals, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the active monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a detailed article listing over 30 social media monitoring tools that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc. Visit this page to learn more:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social tracking plugin for your WordPress-based digital business presence and improving your social media exposure.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your goal is simple … change red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, more traffic and an increase in revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Installation Is Easy
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to change more reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Track Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro 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 of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides web site owners with many features. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in no time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays updated stats from your WordPress admin bar, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Minimal hosting resources usage. The plugin generates reports in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the data as 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 To Excel: You can export and plot data in 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 convert all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Product Users
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that customers have provided for 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
***
”If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve.” Goes one of the most important sayings in business. And this is particularly true for tracking of your social mentions I found. There were two things that helped me a great deal to increase sharing after installing Social Metrics: First, I was able to see that some of my articles would perform much better on networks I wasn’t particularly using, such as StumbleUpon for example. Secondly, I could filter out the best performing content more easily and analyse what makes my readers share. Since then I have focused strongly on producing and replicating those posts that performed best.” Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer
Useful Tips
A step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This edition lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for the Social Metrics Pro plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price at the time this review was written. This 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 your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price:
Additional Plugin Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account social signals when determining website ranking.
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 immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and shows you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***