Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, Twitter mentions and retweets, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account various social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media 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 too much importance to social signals 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 Social Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single 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 Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every week. 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, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze social media performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to find insights into your company’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, spy on your competitors, and spot market opportunities. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, brands, products, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to monitor social activity on social media channels like blogging, forums, wikis, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Quora, etc., discussion groups, video/photo sharing sites, and user-generated content (UGC) is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including marketing professionals, market research, PR staff, social marketing agencies, social engagement and community staff, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed a range of affordable and even free tools that facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify what is being said online about your brand or products so you can respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article about social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business,etc. To learn more, go here:
(Can you monitor your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for tracking social signals and improving your social media exposure online.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The user’s objective is to change more red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with highest number of shares display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of 3 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 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 the plugin developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can positively can have a positive effect on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other WP plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to turn all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Select Only Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social activity across leading social networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Digg.
SocialMetricsPro 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 is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro provides website owners with a number of features. Here are a few:
- Quick and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest stats right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. Update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive email notifications when a new version is released.
- Plugin works the smallest hosting configuration. The plugin generates reports very quickly, consuming very little hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources used to gather the data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, category, or publishing date.
- 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 red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback plugin customers have submitted for the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”Our entire marketing strategy relies on social media. Each post on the site has viral potential, but we needed one place to see which social networks are performing the best for us…We went ahead and got the PRO Version of Social Metrics.” Syed Balkhi, Founder of List25 and WPBeginner.com
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”I give Social Metrics a big thumbs up and I recommend it to anyone who’s serious about tracking their social sharing analytics.” James Johnson, Senior Editor at The Inquisitr
Social Metrics Pro – Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
The plugin is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on a single web site. Cost includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License Edition – This option enables you to activate Social Metrics Pro on all the web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing when this review was published. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
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.
Download The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals when determining website 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 instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and shows you where to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress admin area.
We recommend getting Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to improve social media visibility and see more of your keywords getting better rankings on search engines.
For more details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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