Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines are now taking into account various social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
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 own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere 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 websites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, you should not 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 website rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus 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 on GooglePlus each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ your site page has amassed, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search engine rankings. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, assess competitor activity and market share, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, spot market opportunities, and measure the impact of campaigns. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, businesses, topics, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social media channels like blogs, forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video/photo sharing sites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 digital reputation management (ORM) agencies, marketing professionals, market research, sales teams, social engagement and community staff, and social marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately a number of service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your products or brand allowing you to react to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely manner.
To learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about, refer to this article:
(Are you measuring your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social media monitoring plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin 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 premise – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your task is to turn more red squares into greens.
(A system that any website owner can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and 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 their metrics on “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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social media marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, increased web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Installation Is Easy
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to convert reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro offers a number of features to WP users. Below we have listed just some of those features:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows the latest stats from your WordPress admin bar, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever a new version is released.
- Minimal use of hosting resources. Social metrics reports are compiled very quickly, consuming little hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or publishing date.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just convert all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback customers have published about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
“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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”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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Useful Tips
A practical guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to set up SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This allows you to run Social Metrics Pro on all the sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The price of the Social Metrics Pro product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price at the time this content was written. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product seller when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account social signals to help determine 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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them where and how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to monitor which social media networks are working for your business.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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