Social interactions like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals to help determine 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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts 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 perfect ‘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 true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social network on the planet. Research shows that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your site, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other 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 500 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting socially on Google+ every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, the authority of the person sharing the information, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus a site page has accrued, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [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 improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, identify market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, avert crises, and assess competitor activity. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, topics, brands, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including marketing teams, market researchers, digital reputation management (ORM) companies, sales teams, agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses do not can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have made available affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to track what consumers are saying about your products or brand allowing you to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. Go here to learn more about this:
(Are you searching for an effective way to monitor your social signals?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet highly effective social media monitoring tool for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make improving your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the tool tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your job is simple … change more reds into greens.
(A system that anyone can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts with the highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of 2,000+ 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 noticed 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 media marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, increased traffic and more revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Simple To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is quite easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to change all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to invest more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social activity from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WP admin area.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro provides website owners with many unique features. Below we have listed a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest stats right on your WP admin bar, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. You can update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Low-resource consumption. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, using very little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server memory used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post type, publishing date, or post authors.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just change red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are some of the testimonials that users have submitted for Social Metrics Pro:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option allows you to install SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This license option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on all the websites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives website owners immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them where and how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which social networks are working for your business.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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