Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, 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 media presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than 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 perfect ‘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 sites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media community on the planet. 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 a ton of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of 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 single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
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 interacting on GooglePlus each year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on GooglePlus your web page has, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive 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 website owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social performance in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, be alerted to impending crises, measure the impact of campaigns, identify opportunities for engagement, and spy on your competitors. It can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, businesses, brands, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including marketing professionals, online reputation managers, market research, sales teams, agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various providers have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict what is being said online about their products or brands so they can respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in a timely manner.
Go here for a detailed article about social media measurement tools that you may want to check out:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet effective social tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media influence.
Our Featured WordPress Plugin …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your job is simple … convert more red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 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 marketing campaigns can dramatically affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Very Easy To Install
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user section and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to convert all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally monitor social activity across leading networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 SocialMetricsPro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides website owners with many great features. Below we have listed a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays updated information right on your WP admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrades. You can update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever new versions are released.
- Uses very little resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, publishing date, category, or by post authors.
- 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 simple to use … just turn more red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials plugin users have submitted regarding SocialMetricsPro:
”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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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Licensing Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you install SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This lets you install Social Metrics Pro on all sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Price details for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing here:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 WordPress users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save money on outsourcing your social marketing or train your staff to manage your campaigns in-house.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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