Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines now take into account social signals to help determine website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media 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 assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a perfect ‘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 websites that provide true value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, 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, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(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 every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social site naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ every month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, how influential the person sending a tweet is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number 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 negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, spy on your competition, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot market opportunities, and help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied customers. It can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, topics, 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 teams, online reputation management (ORM) agencies, market research, social media marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately various technology providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the active monitoring 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 interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a comprehensive article listing over 30 social media monitoring tools that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc. Go here for more information:
(Are you tracking your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we review a simple social tracking plugin for a WordPress-based web presence and increasing your social media exposure online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social 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 concept – SocialMetricsPro measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. Your task is simple … turn red squares into greens.
(A system that any website owner can follow … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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”. 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 the plugin developers, improving your social media marketing can significantly can have a dramatic effect on your search engine rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Simple To Install And Use. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Social Metrics Pro installs like any WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s task is to change more reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know which social marketing campaigns require more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 constantly monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. View updated stats right on your WordPress dashboard, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update the plugin in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new versions are released.
- Low-resource consumption. The plugin generates social metrics reports very quickly, using minimal server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources used to gather data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post authors, or post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just change red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials plugin users have provided for the Social Metrics Pro 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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”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
Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on a single site. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This enables you to run Social Metrics Pro on unlimited sites that you own. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing Social Metrics Pro can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product sells for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software developer when you visit the plugin site 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 Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them where and how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
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