Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to assessing social media signals, as social trends and relationships tend to change too quickly to fully map out. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much importance to social signals over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social community in the world. It has been estimated that an average 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 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 to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites, like Twitter andGooglePlus.
(Number of monthly 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 day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of 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 Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
(A number of social sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares a person has, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your web page has, the authority of the person tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on GooglePlus a URL has amassed, 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 social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your services, company, or brand on social media, measure the impact of campaigns, spy on your competition, help you take preventative measures against the spread of negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers, and identify opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, products, businesses, 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 a cross-section of people including marketing teams, online reputation specialists, market research, social engagement and community staff, professional sales reps, and social marketing agencies. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of service providers have created affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict what is being said online about your brand allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article where we explore over 30 social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. See this page for more details:
(Are you looking for an effective tool that can help you measure your social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple, yet highly effective WordPress plugin for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Announcing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s goal is to turn all the reds into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a system that any website owner can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro 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 their metrics on “green”. According to the plugin developers, 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can result in better search engine rankings, more web traffic and increased revenue!)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Quick And Simple To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to change all the red squares into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals so you know where to apply more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you centrally monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest directly from your WordPress admin area.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns 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 actively monitors the social sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WP users with many great features. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access the latest information from your WordPress admin bar, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Uses minimal hosting resources. Social metrics reports are compiled very quickly, using very little hosting resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post authors, or by post type.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just change red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and feedback users 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 containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Social Metrics Pro Plugin Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime software updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Plugin Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This lets you install SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Pricing details of the Social Metrics Pro product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this content was written. This may not be the actual price set by the product 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 the latest pricing information here:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. Social Metrics Pro 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 shows them where to direct their efforts in order 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 admin area.
We recommend Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social media marketing results professionally.
For complete details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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