Social recommendations like Facebook comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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 media, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a perfect ‘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 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 results.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social network on the planet. Research shows that one great post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ and Twitter.
(Number of 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 emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every year. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other sites that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, spy on your competition, and spot opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific products, businesses, brands, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including digital reputation management (ORM) companies, marketing professionals, market research, professional sales reps, social engagement and community staff, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately many service providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can respond to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
Go here if you would like to learn more about social media tracking tools that are worth checking out and knowing about:
(Are you monitoring your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple social tracking tool for WordPress and improving your social media exposure.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you improve your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – Social Metrics Pro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. Your job is to turn more reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any website owner can follow … simply 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 developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin 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 everything “green”. According to the plugin developers, 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to change red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to track and monitor social activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro 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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WordPress users with many unique features. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View updated information right on your WP dashboard, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications whenever new versions are released.
- Minimal hosting resources usage. The plugin generates social metrics reports fast, using very little hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post type, or by post authors.
- Export Data: You can export data to 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 reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have published about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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 (WordCamp Montreal 2011)
Useful Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Software Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license option enables you to set up SocialMetricsPro on a single website. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This edition allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on all the sites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The price of the SocialMetricsPro product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the software seller when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account a range of social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and guides you how to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly 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: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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