Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
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 web spam team 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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. It has been estimated that one great post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t 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 rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single 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 volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every day. 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, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 rankings and traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, be alerted to disasters, assess competitor activity, and identify opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, products, brands, or topics.
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, often carried out by various people including digital reputation management companies, market research, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand so you can respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article listing many social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. More information:
(Are you looking for an effective way to measure social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. Your job is to turn red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand sites 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 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can dramatically impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro installs just like any other WP plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to convert more reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro 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 this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WordPress users with a number of features. Below we have listed a few:
- Quick and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated information right on your WP admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Uses minimal resources. Reporting is in seconds, using little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & 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, category, post authors, or by publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just turn more red squares into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have provided for the Social Metrics Pro 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 Plugin – Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to configure Social Metrics Pro on 1 website only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on multiple websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for the Social Metrics Pro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
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 the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives WordPress users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and shows them where and how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to outperform your competitors on social media.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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