Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals when determining a site’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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own 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 the social sphere 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 sites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. It has been estimated that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, 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, 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 600 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, GooglePlus 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 year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, the authority of the person tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [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 signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your business results)
Monitoring 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, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, and assess competitor activity and market share. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, products, brands, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track conversations, trends, and social activity on social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including market research, digital reputation managers, marketing teams, agencies, social engagement and community staff, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many service providers have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict what is being said online about your brand or products allowing you to respond to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
If you want to learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that you may want to check out, see this article:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and growing your social media influence.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make increasing your social media exposure online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your task is to change all red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 noticed 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search engine rankings, more web traffic and increased revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro installs like every other plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to change all the red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media 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 of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows updated information from your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal usage of hosting resources. The plugin can generate social metrics reports very quickly, using little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server memory used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, category, or post authors.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered 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 really simple to use … just convert red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that customers have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”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 guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Product Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on all sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product seller 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 current pricing information:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
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 guides you where and how to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to track your social signals automatically.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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