Social recommendations like Facebook shares, comments, and likes, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take into account various social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere 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 real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not 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 search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares 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 are following you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 and traffic. 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 find ways to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, identify opportunities for engagement, assess competitor activity and mind share, and take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied customers. It can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, brands, topics, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track social conversations and social activity on social media channels like blogging, internet forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms, message boards, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content 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 groups that include marketing teams, market research, online reputation managers, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a broad range of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media measurement tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress websites and blogs for tracking social signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. Your job is to convert all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity are colored 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 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can result in higher search rankings, increased web traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin login and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to convert all red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you track and monitor social media activity from social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Digg, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to 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 this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to WordPress users. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access the latest information right on your WP admin bar, add socially popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin uses minimal hosting resources. The plugin can generate social metrics reports in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server resources used to gather data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post authors, publishing date, or by post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export data 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert more red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials plugin customers have published about the SocialMetricsPro 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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”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
A step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This edition enables you to activate Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This allows you to install Social Metrics Pro on all the websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing details of Social Metrics Pro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing when this article was published. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals when determining website 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 immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and guides you how to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to improve social visibility and see more of your keywords getting ranked on search engines.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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