Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 social media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. 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 normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, products, or brand on social media, spy on your competitors, be alerted to disasters, identify potential opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, brands, businesses, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social media channels like blogs, internet forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, etc., message boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include marketing teams, digital reputation specialists, market researchers, sales teams, social media marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many providers have developed a range of tools that facilitate the monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands so they can react to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
We have created a detailed article listing several social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. More info:
(Can you monitor social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet highly effective social media tracking plugin for your digital presence and increasing your social media exposure.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is simple … turn all reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can dramatically impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Quick Installation
SocialMetricsPro installs like every WP plugin. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to convert more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity from social media networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, and LinkedIn directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro 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 of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers website owners with many great features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View the latest information from your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updating. You can update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when a new version is released.
- Plugin works the smallest hosting. Reporting is fast, using very little server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather and compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, category, or by post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries to 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 all the reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are a couple of the testimonials users have published about SocialMetricsPro:
”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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”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 Plugin – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Software Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to install SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on all websites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing Social Metrics Pro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
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.
The Bottom Line
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account various social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
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 you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to see measurable results.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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