Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook comments, 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 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 social signals 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 sites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social 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 network in the world. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 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 power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses 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 search rankings of all social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on GooglePlus each week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social metrics, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, how influential the person retweeting your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus a web page has accrued, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, identify potential market opportunities, spy on the competition, measure the impact of campaigns, and be alerted to crises. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, topics, products, or businesses.
As a tool for business intelligence, social media 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 market research, marketing teams, PR staff, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and sales teams. Typically, small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed a range of tools that facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand so you can react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely manner.
We have created a comprehensive article listing a number of social media tracking tools that you may want to check out. For more details, go here:
(Do you know how to effectively monitor your social signals?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress-powered sites for monitoring social signals and improving your social media presence.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s job is simple … change red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that anyone can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand sites over a period of 3 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 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, improving your social media marketing can significantly impact your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more about this plugin here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your objective is to convert more red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social campaigns need more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social media activity across leading networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WordPress 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 of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro provides website owners with a number of features. Here are a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated information from your WP admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal consumption of resources. Reporting is in seconds, consuming very little hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter the information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, publishing date, post type, or category.
- Export Data: You can export filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just turn all reds into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Users
Below are just some testimonials plugin customers have written about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
“Social Metrics Pro is the essential plugin we use to monitor how our content performs on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s simple, neat and works precisely as you would expect it. When we work with our clients such as T-Mobile, the .Me domain name registry and others, Social Metrics Pro is the plugin we use to create reports as well as keep track on each bit of content to optimize it for future performance.” Ivan Brezak Brkan, Editor of Netokracija.com, TechCrunch EU Contributor
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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to run Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This license option allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on unlimited domains that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Current pricing for SocialMetricsPro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Presently, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking 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 WordPress users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how and where 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 shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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