Social recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter mentions and retweets, 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 website owners 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 own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social media community on the planet. Research shows that a single post 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 uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second 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 online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
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 socially on Google+ every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, company, or products on social media, avert crises, spot potential opportunities for engagement, spy on your competitors, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, products, topics, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of groups that include market researchers, marketing teams, PR staff, agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have made available tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a wide spectrum of social media channels, enabling companies to identify what is being said online about their brands or products allowing them to respond to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
If you want to learn more about social media tracking tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that could affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc, see this article:
(Are you measuring your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and improving your social media presence online.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
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 – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s goal is to turn all the reds into greens.
(A system that any user can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with the highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of over two thousand sites over a period of 3 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 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing can positively affect your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to convert all reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to put more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
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 on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides website owners with many unique features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays the latest information right on your WP admin bar, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updating. You can update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal usage of hosting resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming minimal hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to compile data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter the information as 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 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just turn all the red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that 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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”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 – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Software Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on all sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the software is being retailed for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin 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 current pricing details:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and shows them how and where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to track your social signals automatically.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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