Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, shares, and likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 social media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 sites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community in the world. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of 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 each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sharing the information, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can influence search rankings. These include desirable 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 irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, company, or brand on social media, be alerted to disasters, spot opportunities for engagement, spy on your competition, and measure the impact of campaigns. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social media channels like blogging, internet forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Medium, etc., discussion boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including marketing professionals, PR staff, market research, social engagement and community personnel, professional sales reps, and agencies. Typically, small 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 affordable tools that facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling companies to track what consumers, competitors, supporters, and critics are saying about their products or brands so they can respond to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have created a comprehensive article where we explore a number of social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. More info:
(Are you tracking social signals effectively?)
In this article, we look at a simple plugin for WordPress users for tracking social signals and increasing your social media presence online.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence 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 site owner’s task is simple … change more reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that anyone can operate … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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”. 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, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search rankings, increased traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user account and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to convert all reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social activity from social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro offers web site owners with many great features. Here are some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and configure. Be up and running in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View updated information right on your WP admin bar, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click upgrades. You can update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin even works on the smallest hosting. Metric reports are generated fast, using minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory used to gather and compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post authors, or by post type.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just convert all reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are just some testimonials 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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This option lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on one website only. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license option enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. 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. Presently, the plugin retails for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing information here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and shows you where and how to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social marketing results professionally.
For complete details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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