Social recommendations like Facebook likes, shares, and comments, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social media 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 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 summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to display higher in its search results.
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 media community in the world. It has been estimated that an average post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of 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 each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
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 interacting on Google+ every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 influence search traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, identify new market opportunities, assess competitor activity and market dominance, avert crises, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, social signal monitoring 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 professionals, market research, online reputation managers, social media marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify consumer behavior around your products or brand allowing you to respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. For more info, see this article:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we explore a simple, yet highly effective social media tracking plugin for your site and improving your social media exposure online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help users improve their social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s goal is simple … convert reds into greens.
(A system that any user can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts with highest number of shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand websites 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”. According to the plugin developers, they were able to notice 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can dramatically can have a positive effect on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
More info:
Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro installs like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to convert reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally monitor social media activity from social media networks like Twitter, GooglePlus, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which posts 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.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WP users with many unique features. Here are some:
- Quick and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when a new version is released.
- Minimal consumption of resources. Social reports are generated in seconds, using little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, publishing date, or by category.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
User Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials customers have provided for 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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”Social Metrics is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation
Social Metrics Pro – Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on 1 domain only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on all the domains that you own. It includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the product 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
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
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 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 admin area.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to save time and resources by focusing on under-optimized social campaigns.
For more details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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