Social interactions like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account a range of social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media presence 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 signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. 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 websites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine 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 media community in the world. Research shows that an average post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social site 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 interacting on Google+ each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only 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 results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or products on social media, identify potential opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, brands, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to track social conversations and activity on social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include digital reputation management companies, marketing professionals, market research, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various providers have made available many affordable tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth knowing about here:
(Are you searching for an effective tool to help you measure your social signals?)
This article explores a simple social monitoring tool for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is to change reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of three 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social marketing can significantly can have a dramatic impact on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Ready To Use In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin user account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to change all red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many unique features to WP users. Here are some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated stats right on your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. You can update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses minimal hosting resources. Metric reports are generated in seconds, consuming very little hosting resources. The tool 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 & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are just a few of the testimonials that customers have published about 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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on one domain only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This license option allows you to install 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 to purchase this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the software sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account various social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. 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 strategy and shows you where 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 SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which social media networks are working for your business.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
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