Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook shares, likes, and comments, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media 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 social media, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses 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.
(Number of monthly 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 day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer 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 each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus 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+ each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track various social signals, including:
- 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 web page has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your URL has, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot opportunities for engagement, be alerted to impending crises, and spy on your competitors. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific topics, brands, products, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to monitor social media channels like blogs, internet forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Medium, etc., message 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, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include marketing teams, PR agencies, market researchers, social engagement and community staff, professional sales reps, and social marketing agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand so you can respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article listing many social media monitoring tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc. Go here for more details:
(Are you looking for an effective tool that can help you measure social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress-driven websites for monitoring social media signals and growing 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-install social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the system tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s job is simple … turn all the red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with the highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 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 media marketing can result in higher search rankings, more traffic and more revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Easy To Install
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to convert all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns need you to invest more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Pinterest, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social media sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers a number of features to WordPress users. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access updated stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin works the smallest hosting. The plugin can generate social metrics reports fast, using little server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, post type, post authors, or by category.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just turn all the red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Customers
Below are a couple of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have provided for Social Metrics Pro:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
***
“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Product Tips
A step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This edition enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on all the web sites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $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. When we last checked, the software sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account various social signals when determining a website’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 users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
***
***