Social interactions like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook shares, likes, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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. 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 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 the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, 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, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, 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 factors that can influence search engine traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [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 media marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, avert impending crises, assess competitor activity and mind share, and spot market opportunities. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, businesses, products, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor social activity on social media channels like blogs, forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video sites, and user-generated content 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 groups that include PR staff, market research, marketing professionals, social media marketing agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed a range of affordable and even free tools that facilitate the monitoring of a wide spectrum of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand allowing you to react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about here:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
This article explores a simple social media monitoring plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media influence.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s goal is simple … turn all the red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites 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 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can positively impact your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your administrator account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to convert red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers site owners with a number of features. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest stats right on your WP dashboard, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update the plugin with one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Minimal usage of resources. Reports are compiled fast, consuming minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, category, post authors, or by publishing date.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just change reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin customers have provided for the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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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”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
Plugin 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
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This option lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license option enables you to use Social Metrics Pro on multiple web sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current price when this article was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
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.
Install This Product
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 users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how and where to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing campaigns work for you.
For more details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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