Social interactions like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account various social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
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. 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 tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to social signals 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 value tend to 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 sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social network in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that 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 largest 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 amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus every month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Reddit, etc.
- Other 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 undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, assess competitor activity and market dominance, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, and identify market opportunities. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including PR companies, market researchers, marketing professionals, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately various providers have made available affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active tracking of a broad range of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing several social media tracking tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. More information:
(Do you know how to effectively track social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for tracking social signals and growing your social media influence.
Let’s Review …
Social Metrics Pro – Social 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 uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is simple … turn reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin 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”. From these tests, 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can dramatically affect your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to turn all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally track and monitor social activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Pinterest directly from your WP admin area.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WP users with a number of great features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View the latest information from your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little hosting resources. The plugin can generate social metrics reports very quickly, consuming little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, post authors, category, or publishing date.
- 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 simple to use … just turn red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials and feedback plugin customers have published 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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Social Metrics Pro – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to activate SocialMetricsPro on 1 web site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License Edition – This license option lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited domains that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals when determining a website’s 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 instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you how and 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 admin area.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to improve social visibility and see more of your keywords getting better rankings on search engines.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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