Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 sites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media network on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook 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 Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next 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 emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting on GooglePlus each week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine 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 comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, company, or services on social media, avert crises, spot new opportunities for engagement, measure the impact of campaigns, and spy on your competitors. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including market research, marketing teams, PR companies, sales teams, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various service providers have made available affordable tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand so you can respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article where we explore over 30 social media monitoring tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here to learn more:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
This article discusses a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you improve your social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s job is simple … turn all reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … 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 or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in higher search rankings, more web traffic and more revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Easy Installation
Social Metrics Pro installs like any plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator login and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to turn all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
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 SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated stats right on your WordPress admin bar, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. You can update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Uses very little hosting resources. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, consuming minimal hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, category, or post type.
- Export Data To Excel: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just turn more reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin customers have published about 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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”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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Product License Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This edition lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on a single website. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This option lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current when this content was written. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account various social signals to help determine a site’s 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 strategy and guides you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to improve social visibility and see more of your keywords getting ranked on search engines.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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