Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social 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 social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “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 display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community in the world. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your site, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries a significant degree of 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 GooglePlus each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sharing your information is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has amassed, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include desirable 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 of poor quality by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or products on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot market opportunities, spy on your competition, and be alerted to disasters. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social media signal monitoring 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 market research, marketing teams, digital reputation management (ORM) specialists, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed many tools to facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out. To learn more, go here:
(Can you monitor your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple social media monitoring tool for WordPress and improving your social media presence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your objective is to turn red squares into greens.
(A system that any website owner can operate … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro 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”. According to the plugin developers, 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, more traffic and an increase in revenue!)
More info:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs like any regular plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to change reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to centrally track and monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
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 SocialMetricsPro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WP users with many features. Here are a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Plugin uses minimal resources. Reporting is very quickly, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, post authors, or category.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered data and custom queries 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 convert all the red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have written about SocialMetricsPro:
”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
***
”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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This edition lets you run SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on all sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing details of Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. 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 campaigns and shows you how and where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
***
***