Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines are now taking into account social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social community in the world. Research shows 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, don’t 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, Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 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 readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social site 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 interacting on GooglePlus each month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social sites listed above, there are a number of other sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, how influential the person sharing the posts is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a site page has, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious 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 desirable and undesirable 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 irrelevant by other users [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 media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your products, company, or brand on social media, avert impending crises, measure the impact of campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and spot market opportunities. It can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, topics, products, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track social media channels like blogging, internet forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, etc., discussion groups, video sites, and user-generated content 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 people including marketing professionals, market researchers, digital reputation management (ORM) specialists, sales teams, social media marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed many affordable tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article where we explore a number of social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. More info:
(Are you looking for an effective tool to help you track social signals?)
In this article, we look at a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites for tracking social media signals and growing your social media influence online.
Our Featured WordPress Product Is …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help users grow their social media influence 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. Your goal is to change all the red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin 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 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social marketing can significantly impact your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your web site:
Easy, Quick & Simple To Install
Social Metrics Pro installs just like any other plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user login and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to turn all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to apply more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity from networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
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 on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many unique features to web site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. SocialMetricsPro displays the latest information right on your WP dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. Update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever a new version is released.
- Minimal server resources usage. Reporting is fast, using very little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter 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 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just convert all red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have submitted for Social Metrics Pro:
”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
Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Software Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license option enables you to use Social Metrics Pro on one site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This license option lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on all the sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the SocialMetricsPro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing above was current at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller 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 the current price here:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Download The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro 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 users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
For complete details, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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