Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than 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 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value 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 Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. It has been estimated that an average post 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 social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social networking 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 actively using Google+ every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include 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 your site has, the authority of the person tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine 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 business 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 media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users, assess competitor activity, identify opportunities for engagement, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, products, topics, or businesses.
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, often carried out by a cross-section of people including market researchers, PR staff, marketing teams, social engagement and community personnel, professional sales reps, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. Go here to learn more about this:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple WordPress plugin for monitoring social signals and growing your social media influence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s objective is to turn more reds into greens.
(A system that any website owner can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 their metrics on “green”. From these tests, they were able to notice 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, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, increased traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Installation Is Easy, Fast And Simple
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator login and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to turn red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know which campaigns require more effort and where to optimize.
Track Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to centrally monitor social activity from social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Digg, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest.
Social Metrics Pro 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro offers website owners with many great features. Here are just a few:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access the latest stats right on your WP dashboard, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrades. Update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Low server resource consumption. Social metrics reports are generated in seconds, using little server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources used to gather and compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post authors, 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just convert more red squares into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have published about the Social Metrics Pro 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
Social Metrics Pro comes with a practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Product License Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on 1 web site only. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This allows you to use Social Metrics Pro on unlimited domains that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the Social Metrics Pro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing when this review was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download The Product
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them how and where to direct their efforts in order 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 WP dashboard.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to see measurable results.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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