Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines now take into account 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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “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 naturally wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
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 in the world. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 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 data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value 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 media site, GooglePlus 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 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 social media networks that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, the authority of the person sharing your information, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine traffic and rankings. 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 irrelevant by visitors [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 monitor, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or products on social media, spy on the competition, measure the impact of campaigns, be alerted to disasters, and identify opportunities for engagement. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track volume and sentiments of social conversations, trends, and social activity on social media channels like blogging, internet forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms, discussion groups, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including marketing teams, market research, PR staff, social media marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various service providers have developed many tools that facilitate the active monitoring of a wide spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify what consumers are saying about their products or brands so they can react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article where we explore over 30 social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about. To learn more, visit this page:
(Do you know how to effectively track your social signals?)
This article explores a simple social tracking plugin for your online business and improving your social media presence online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users improve their social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is to turn more reds into greens.
(A system that any website owner can operate … 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 are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three 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 a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can affect your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to turn more reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to centrally monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers WordPress users with many unique features. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information from your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrades. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Utilizes very little hosting resources. Metric reports are generated in seconds, consuming little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory used to gather and compile data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter data however 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 To Excel: 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 simple to use … just convert all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that customers have written about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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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
A practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to install SocialMetricsPro on one domain only. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This license enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on unlimited web sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price shown above was current when this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Plugin Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account a range of social signals when determining 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 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 directly from your WP dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shorten your social media marketing learning curve.
For more information, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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