Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social community in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is 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 to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest 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 number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of 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 GooglePlus every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as 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 Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by visitors [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 track and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, assess competitor activity, identify potential opportunities for engagement, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, products, businesses, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track social media 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 research, online reputation specialists, marketing teams, agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of service providers have developed tools and solutions that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to track what is being said online about their brands or products allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media presence.
Our Recommended WordPress Product …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you improve your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s goal is to change more red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of over two thousand 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 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing can result in better search rankings, more web traffic and increased revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to change reds 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 which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity from networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many unique features to website owners. Here are just some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrades. Update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Low server resource consumption. Reports are generated fast, consuming very little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post authors, or post type.
- 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just turn all reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials customers have provided for 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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”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
Product Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on multiple domains that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The price of the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software is selling for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
The Bottom Line
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
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 you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and shows you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your 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.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social marketing work for you.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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