Social recommendations like Facebook comments, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account a range of social signals when determining website 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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts 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 value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
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 largest social network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, GooglePlus naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants 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 to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, 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. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, products, or brand on social media, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, avert impending crises, and spot opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, businesses, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal 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 market researchers, marketing teams, PR companies, sales teams, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have made available a range of affordable and even free tools to facilitate the tracking of a broad range of social media channels, allowing you to track what is being said online about your brand so you can react to conversations and interact with online users in a timely manner.
We have created a comprehensive article listing a number of social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. Go here for more information:
(Are you looking for an effective way to monitor social signals?)
This article discusses a simple social tracking plugin for a WordPress-based online business and increasing your social media presence.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s objective is to convert all the red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure 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 show up amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro 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”. 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social marketing can affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to change more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Track Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social activity across leading social networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers many features to WP users. Below we have listed some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays the latest stats right on your WordPress admin bar, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrading. You can update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications whenever a new version is released.
- Consumes very little resources. Social metrics reports are generated fast, consuming very little hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to gather the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, category, publishing date, or by post type.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert all red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials customers have published about SocialMetricsPro:
“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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”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 – Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
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, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on a single website. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This license option enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the product seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Product 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, social signals impact search engine rankings and 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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and shows them how and where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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