Social recommendations like Facebook likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines are now taking into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 the 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 full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to the social sphere 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 develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ and 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 every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are starting to interact socially on GooglePlus every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, the number of people sharing your URL, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, number and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media performance 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 your brand’s online visibility on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by online users, and identify potential market opportunities. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, businesses, topics, or products.
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 a cross-section of people including market researchers, marketing teams, online reputation management (ORM) agencies, professional sales reps, social marketing agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, small businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands so they can respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article where we explore many social media tracking tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. More information:
(Are you measuring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence.
Let’s Review …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users grow their social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is to change more reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that anyone can operate … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and 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 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 SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social marketing campaigns can result in better search engine rankings, more traffic and increased revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Start Using In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro is very easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to convert all red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require investing more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Social Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally track and monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Digg.
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?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors the sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides a number of features to web site owners. Here are some:
- Fast and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access updated information right on your WordPress dashboard, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updating. Update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal consumption of hosting resources. Reporting is in seconds, using very little hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering the data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post type, publishing date, or post authors.
- Export Data: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just change more reds into greens!)
User Testimonials
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that plugin customers have published about Social Metrics Pro:
“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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”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
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin 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, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This license enables you to configure Social Metrics Pro on a single web site. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Licensing – This edition allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on unlimited websites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Price details for the Social Metrics Pro plugin can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing information here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This Product
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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and shows you how to direct your efforts in order 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 Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to monitor which social media networks are working for your business.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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