Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. 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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites 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 for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social media community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ 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 interacting on Google+ every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 signals that can influence search traffic. These include desirable and undesirable 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 irrelevant by other users [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, measure and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, identify opportunities for engagement, spy on your competitors, measure the impact of campaigns, and take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, products, businesses, or topics.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to track social media channels like blogging, forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms, message boards, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 marketing teams, online reputation specialists, market researchers, social media marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed many tools to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have created a comprehensive article listing a number of social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. Go here for more info:
(Do you know how to effectively track social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social monitoring tool for your WordPress-based online business and improving your social media exposure.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make growing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your task is to change all red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they were able to notice 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 media marketing can result in better search rankings, more web traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Easy And Fast To Install
SocialMetricsPro installs like any other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin area and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to convert more reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social activity across leading social networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers many features to WordPress users. Here are a few:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays the latest stats from your WP admin bar, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click auto-upgrade functionality. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when a new version is released.
- Minimal use of server resources. Social reports are compiled very quickly, consuming little hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, post authors, publishing date, or category.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just change all red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have submitted for Social Metrics Pro:
”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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”If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve.” Goes one of the most important sayings in business. And this is particularly true for tracking of your social mentions I found. There were two things that helped me a great deal to increase sharing after installing Social Metrics: First, I was able to see that some of my articles would perform much better on networks I wasn’t particularly using, such as StumbleUpon for example. Secondly, I could filter out the best performing content more easily and analyse what makes my readers share. Since then I have focused strongly on producing and replicating those posts that performed best.” Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer
SocialMetricsPro – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Social Metrics Pro Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option lets you run Social Metrics Pro on one site only. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This license option lets you install Social Metrics Pro on all the domains that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing details of SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The price above was current at the time this article was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Product
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking 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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and shows you where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to see measurable results.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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