Social recommendations like Facebook shares, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social 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 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 value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network on the planet. Research shows that an average post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other 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 500 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion 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 is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the number of people sharing your URL, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your web page has, amount and authority of +1s, 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 social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, identify market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, be alerted to disasters, and spy on the competition. It can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, businesses, products, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various groups that include marketing teams, market researchers, online reputation management companies, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed many tools that facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to track consumer behavior around their brands or products so they can react to conversations and interact with online users in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. To learn more about this go here:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs for tracking social media signals and improving your social media exposure online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the system measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s objective is simple … turn all red squares into greens.
(A system that any website owner can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ 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 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 can have a dramatic effect on your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs like every other plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to turn more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to apply more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to track and monitor social activity from networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro offers website owners with a number of great features. Below we have listed a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays the latest stats from your WP dashboard, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click auto-upgrading functionality. You can update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Plugin works the smallest hosting. Social reports are generated fast, consuming very little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post authors, post type, or publishing date.
- 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just convert reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin customers have provided for the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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
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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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Useful 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 Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Software Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This license option lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was correct at the time this article was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to 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 immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how and where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing measurable.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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