Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
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 media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere 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 sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. Research shows 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 site, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites, like Twitter orGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking 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 Google+ every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social metrics, 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 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 a web page has, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your site page has accrued, 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 factors that can indirectly influence search traffic and rankings. These include desirable 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 of poor quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, company, or brand on social media, spot new market opportunities, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of campaigns, and be alerted to disasters. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific businesses, topics, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social media signal monitoring 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 digital reputation specialists, marketing professionals, market research, social engagement and community personnel, professional sales reps, and agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately a number of providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have created a comprehensive article listing a number of social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here for more information:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective social media monitoring tool for your WordPress-based site and improving your social media presence online.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you improve your social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s job is simple … convert all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any website owner can operate … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro 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 their metrics on “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can result in better search engine rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy, Simple And Quick
Social Metrics Pro installs like every plugin. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to convert all red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Select Only Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social media activity from social networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
Social Metrics Pro 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 this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many great features to site owners. Here are a few:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. Access updated information right on your WP admin bar, add socially popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal server resources consumption. The plugin generates reports fast, consuming minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you 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 category, post type, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data: You can export and plot data 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just turn all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials that plugin users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
***
”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
Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This edition lets you use SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Current pricing for the Social Metrics Pro plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price when this review was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here:
Additional Plugin Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals when determining website 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 immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and guides you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social marketing measurable.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
***
***