Social interactions like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account various 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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own 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 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 websites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media network in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes 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, like Google+ and Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social 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 socially on GooglePlus every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as 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?
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 a web page has, the authority of the person sharing your URL, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can influence search engine rankings. 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 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 monitor, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, spot market opportunities, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific businesses, brands, topics, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various groups that include marketing teams, market research, PR companies, professional sales reps, social media marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have developed a range of tools that facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc. For more details:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we explore a simple social media monitoring tool for a WordPress-based digital presence and increasing your social media influence.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro 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 concept – the system tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s objective is to turn all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any user 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 Social Metrics Pro on a network of 2,000+ websites over a period of 3 months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social media marketing can result in better search rankings, increased traffic and increased revenue!)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to convert all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally monitor social media activity from social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Digg, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro offers WP users with many features. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Ready to start using in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. View the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Uses very little hosting resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, publishing date, or category.
- Export Data To Excel: 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just convert all red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have published about 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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
A practical guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on one website only. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This license enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take into account a range of social signals when determining website 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 instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social media campaigns.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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