Social interactions like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social 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 web spam team 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 sites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social network in the world. It has been estimated that one great 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 uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that provide important social signals, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of 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 comments, likes, and shares a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your web page has, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality 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, measure and analyze social marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, company, or brand on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, avert impending crises, assess competitor activity, and identify market opportunities. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific topics, businesses, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social media channels like blogs, internet forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., discussion 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 people including market research, digital reputation management companies, marketing professionals, agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed affordable tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track what is being said online about your brand or products allowing you to react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have created a detailed article listing over 30 social media tracking tools that you may want to check out. More info:
(Do you know how to effectively track your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective social tracking plugin for your WordPress-based digital business presence and growing your social media influence.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is simple … change red squares into greens.
(A system that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ websites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs like every other WP plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to turn all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social activity from networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro offers site owners with many features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated stats right on your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click auto-upgrade functionality. You can update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal consumption of resources. The plugin generates reports in seconds, using very little server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory used to gather and compile data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, post authors, post type, or category.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
A practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Product Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license option lets you install SocialMetricsPro on a single web site. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on multiple sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product sells for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the plugin author 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 Plugin Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines have started taking into account social signals when determining a site’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 immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and shows you how and where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to monitor which network are working for your business.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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