Social interactions like Facebook shares, likes, and comments, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media presence 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 signals, 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 summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media network on the planet. Research shows that an average 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 the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine 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 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 on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social site 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 actively using Google+ every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, the authority of the person sharing your information, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – 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, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social signals 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 what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, identify new market opportunities, avert crises, assess competitor activity, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, businesses, topics, 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, often carried out by a cross-section of people including marketing teams, market researchers, online reputation management companies, social engagement and community staff, social media marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. To learn more, go here:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs for monitoring social signals and improving your social media presence.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin Is …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you grow your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s goal is to turn all reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that anyone can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin 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”. 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 media marketing can significantly affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Use In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs just like every WordPress plugin. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to turn more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally monitor social activity across leading networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest.
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?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro offers site owners with many features. Below we have listed some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to use in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. View updated stats right on your WordPress admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when new versions are released.
- Minimal server resources use. Reporting is fast, using little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter data 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just turn all the reds into greens!)
Testimonials From Users
Here are some of the testimonials plugin users have published about SocialMetricsPro:
”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
***
“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Product Tips
A step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This option enables you to use Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This lets you install SocialMetricsPro on all web sites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing details of the Social Metrics Pro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This 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 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 users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to outperform your competitors on social media.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
***
***