Social recommendations like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take 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. 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 full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(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 each 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 half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ 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 actively using GooglePlus every year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus a URL has amassed, amount of adds and shares, 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 indirectly influence search traffic and rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competitors, take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users, and spot opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, brands, businesses, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social media monitoring 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, market researchers, PR companies, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to track consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media tracking tools that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc. For more details:
(Are you looking for an effective way to measure social signals?)
This article explores a simple WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Our Featured WordPress Plugin Is …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s goal is to change all reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing can dramatically impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs like any other WP plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to turn more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social marketing campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Choose Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Digg, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social 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 on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides website owners with many features. Here are a few:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated stats from your WP dashboard, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Low-resource consumption. The plugin can generate reports very quickly, consuming very little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server memory used to gather data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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 simple to use … just change all reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are a couple of the testimonials that users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
”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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”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
SocialMetricsPro Plugin – Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product License Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Edition – This edition allows you to use SocialMetricsPro on 1 site only. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This option lets you run Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price above was current at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals when determining a website’s 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 users immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and guides them where and how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro 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 SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to learn how to use social signals to improve your search engine rankings.
For more information, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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