Social interactions like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking 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 own web spam team 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 perfect ‘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 real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. It has been estimated that one great post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of 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 single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- 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 your site has, the authority of the person tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus a web page has, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other 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 negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, avert disasters, spy on the competition, spot new opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, brands, businesses, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social media 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 groups that include marketing teams, online reputation specialists, market researchers, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of providers have made available a range of affordable and even free tools to facilitate the active tracking of a broad range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict what consumers are saying about their brands so they can react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
Go here if you would like to learn more about social media tracking tools that you may want to check out:
(Do you know how to effectively measure social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media exposure.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your goal is simple … change more reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … turn all the 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 are colored amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can result in better search rankings, more web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to change more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Track Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to monitor social activity from networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
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 SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many great features to site owners. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated information right on your WordPress admin bar, add socially popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Consumes minimal server resources. Reporting is fast, using very little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or by publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just turn all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Product Users
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin users have written 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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”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
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This lets you install Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Price details for the Social Metrics Pro plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is selling for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
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 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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and shows you how 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 dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to learn how to use social signals to improve your search rankings.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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