Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. Google’s own head of the web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. 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 a sensible one - “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 rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. Research shows that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGooglePlus.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single 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 socially on GooglePlus every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include:
- 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, how influential the person sharing your URL is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile 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 Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot potential market opportunities, spy on your competitors, and take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied customers. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, topics, products, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, social monitoring 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 digital reputation management companies, marketing professionals, market researchers, professional sales reps, social engagement and community personnel, and social marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately different providers have created tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify what consumers are saying about your brand or products so you can respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have created a detailed article where we explore a number of social media tracking tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. More information:
(Are you looking for an effective way to track social signals?)
In this article, we look at a simple, yet effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you improve your social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s job is to turn red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites 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 a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to convert all reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity from social media networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social 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 actively monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers site owners with many great features. Below we have listed a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated stats from your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click auto-upgrading functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever a new version is released.
- Utilizes minimal server resources. Social metrics reports are compiled in seconds, using very little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to 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, post type, publishing date, or category.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just convert reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have submitted regarding the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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
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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
SocialMetricsPro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you use Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This allows you to configure SocialMetricsPro on multiple web sites that you own. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Price details for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details here:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking 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 website owners immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how and where to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly 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 marketing.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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