Social recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social presence 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 the 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 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 develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social network in the world. 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 the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(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 single 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 volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sharing your information, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount 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 factors that can influence search traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant 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, measure and analyze your social marketing in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, identify market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, spy on your competitors, and avert disasters. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with 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 monitor social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various groups that include PR staff, market researchers, marketing professionals, sales teams, social media marketing agencies, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have made available a range of tools to facilitate the monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, enabling you to identify consumer behavior around your products or brand allowing you to react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
Go here to learn more about social media tracking tools that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc:
(Are you searching for an effective tool to help you monitor social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to make improving your social media presence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your goal is simple … change all the red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any website owner can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares show up 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+ websites over a period of three 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 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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can dramatically affect your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs like any other WP plugin. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to change more red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social media activity from social media networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to site owners. Here are just a few:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Ready to start using in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated stats from your WP admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Low server resource consumption. Metric reports are compiled very quickly, using very little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter 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 category, post type, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export data to 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 very simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Customers
Here are just a few of the testimonials customers have submitted regarding the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Product Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide showing you how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license option lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on one website only. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license option allows you to configure Social Metrics Pro on all web sites that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing for the Social Metrics Pro software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the price when this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install The Plugin
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 the importance of social media. SocialMetricsPro 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 shows them where and how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
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