Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, comments, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social presence 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 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 real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community in the world. It has been estimated 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 Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, the authority of the person sharing your information, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on GooglePlus your web page has, 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 social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, identify market opportunities, be alerted to impending crises, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and measure the impact of campaigns. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, products, brands, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track trends, conversations, and social activity on social media 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 online reputation management (ORM) agencies, market researchers, marketing professionals, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track what is being said online about your products or brand allowing you to react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely manner.
We have created a detailed article where we explore several social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. To learn more, visit this page:
(Are you looking for an effective way to track your social signals?)
This article explores a simple WordPress plugin for tracking social media signals and improving your social media exposure.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users increase their social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s objective is to turn red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can affect your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro installs just like any WordPress plugin. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to change all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social media activity from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
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?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro offers WordPress users with many features. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro shows the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click updating. Update the plugin in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Uses very little resources. Metric reports are generated very quickly, using minimal server resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve the information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data 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 really simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that customers have published about SocialMetricsPro:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
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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
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on one site only. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This option allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing SocialMetricsPro 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 price charged by the product 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 the latest price here:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and 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. SocialMetricsPro 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 guides them where and how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing campaigns work for you.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
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