Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social network on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook 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 Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each 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 amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus 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 Google+ every month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones 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 likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, authority of adds and shares, 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 signals that can influence search engine rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality 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 your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, spot potential opportunities for engagement, spy on your competition, measure the impact of campaigns, and help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific businesses, topics, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social 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 marketing teams, online reputation management companies, market research, sales teams, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed a range of affordable and even free tools that facilitate the monitoring of a wide spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to identify consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with online users in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article about social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple, yet highly effective social media tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media influence online.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is simple … change all the red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that anyone can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 their metrics on “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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social media marketing can can have a positive impact on your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Go To Work In No Time
SocialMetricsPro installs like every plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user login and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to turn reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns require more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- 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
SocialMetricsPro provides WP users with many great features. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated information right on your WP dashboard, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Plugin uses minimal hosting resources. Social reports are compiled fast, using little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post authors, or post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries in 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
Below are some of the testimonials that plugin users have written about SocialMetricsPro:
”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
SocialMetricsPro – Tips
A practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This option enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on one site only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This option lets you install Social Metrics Pro on all web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here:
Additional Product Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
The Bottom Line
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. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them where and how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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