Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Google’s own head of the web spam team Matt Cutts 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 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 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 wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community on the planet. Research shows that an average post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, 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, Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(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 importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social signals 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 products, brand, or company on social media, spot new opportunities for engagement, spy on the competition, measure the impact of campaigns, and be alerted to impending crises. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific topics, brands, products, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various groups that include market research, marketing teams, online reputation managers, social engagement and community personnel, professional sales reps, and social marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately many technology companies have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the active monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict what consumers are saying about their brands or products so they can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
If you want to learn more about social media tracking tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns, refer to this article:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we look at a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your objective is simple … convert all red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any website owner can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display 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 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can result in higher search engine rankings, more traffic and increased revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs like every plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to change more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know which social marketing campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Digg directly from your WordPress admin area.
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 of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides web site owners with many features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest information from your WP admin bar, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updating. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin works even on the smallest hosting configuration. Metric reports are generated fast, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to gather data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter 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, category, or publishing date.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered, sorted 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 red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are just a few of the testimonials and comments that plugin customers have submitted regarding the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.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
Product Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to configure Social Metrics Pro on a single site. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account various social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
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 users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social marketing measurable.
For full details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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