Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, +1s on GooglePlus, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
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. Google’s own head of its web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In short, Google’s strategy is a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide true value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(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 has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social networking site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are actively using Google+ each year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the number of people sharing the information, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, spread rate of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments 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 positive and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spy on your competitors, identify market opportunities, and be alerted to impending crises. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, businesses, topics, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to monitor social activity on social media channels like blogs, internet forums, news sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video/photo sharing sites, and user-generated content 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 people including digital reputation managers, market research, marketing teams, professional sales reps, social engagement and community staff, and social marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different service providers have developed many tools to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a detailed article listing a number of social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that can affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business,etc. More info:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
This article explores a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to help users increase their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your goal is simple … turn 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 display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ websites 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 noticed 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search engine rankings, increased traffic and more revenue!)
Go here to learn more:
Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to turn all the red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Digg, and LinkedIn.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WP users with many features. Here are a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WP admin bar, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click auto-updating functionality. You can update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal consumption of hosting resources. The plugin generates reports in seconds, using minimal server resources. Reports also include the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory used to compile data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post authors, post type, or publishing date.
- 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just convert all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that customers have provided for 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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”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
Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This edition enables you to configure SocialMetricsPro on 1 site only. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Edition – This lets you set up SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Price details for the Social Metrics Pro product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was correct when this review was published. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
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.
Install This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the rise of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and shows them how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social marketing measurable.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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