Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook shares, likes, and comments, +1s on GooglePlus, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account various social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. 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 value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ 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 half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using 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 metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(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 shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as important as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social media marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, be alerted to disasters, spot potential market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, and assess competitor activity and market dominance. It can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, products, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social media channels like blogging, forums, news sites, 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, typically carried out by various groups that include market research, marketing professionals, digital reputation management (ORM) specialists, social engagement and community personnel, sales teams, and social marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed tools that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict consumer behavior around their products or brands allowing them to react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have created a detailed article listing many social media tracking tools that you may want to check out. More information:
(Do you know how to effectively track social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for tracking social signals and growing your social media influence.
Presenting …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you improve your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro 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 red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ sites 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 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can positively can have a dramatic impact on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user account and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to turn more reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Social Metrics Pro 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 is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro provides website owners with a number of great features. Below we have listed a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated information right on your WP admin bar, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update SocialMetricsPro with a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal consumption of hosting resources. Reporting is fast, consuming minimal server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, category, post authors, or publishing date.
- Export Data: You can export filtered 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just turn more reds into greens!)
Testimonials From Customers
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback users have submitted regarding the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
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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 – Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This license allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single web site. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The price of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started taking into account social signals to help determine website ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and shows you how to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save money on outsourcing your social media marketing campaigns.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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