Social interactions like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media presence 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 web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 sites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social network in the world. Research shows that one great 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 site, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine 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 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online 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 a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, 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 (high profile users), how many people follow you, spread rate 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 indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include positive and negative 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 important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, assess competitor activity and mind share, avert disasters, measure the impact of campaigns, and spot potential market opportunities. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, brands, products, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to monitor conversations and social activity on social media 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 researchers, marketing professionals, online reputation management (ORM) companies, sales teams, agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a wide spectrum of social media channels, allowing you to track what is being said online about your brand or products so you can respond to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have created a comprehensive article where we explore over 30 social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. More info:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress sites for monitoring social media signals and improving your social media exposure.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make increasing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is to change all reds into greens.
(A system that any user 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 show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up 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 their metrics on “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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Installation Is Easy And Simple
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to turn more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social activity from social media networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress admin area.
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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and use. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Access the latest stats from your WordPress admin bar, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin uses very little resources. The plugin can generate social metrics reports very quickly, using little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, post type, or by category.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just change red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are some of the testimonials plugin users have published 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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
A practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This enables you to run Social Metrics Pro on one site only. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Edition – This enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on multiple domains that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the website and there may be 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.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking 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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing campaigns and guides you how and where to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which social networks are working for your business.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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