Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, +1s on GooglePlus, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and 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 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 perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 websites that provide true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for 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 a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your site, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google processes social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on website rankings of all social media sites.
(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 day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social media site, Google+ naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social media networks worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track a number of social signals, including 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. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a site page has amassed, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search traffic and rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by other users [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social media campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your products, brand, or company on social media, avert crises, measure the impact of campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and identify opportunities for engagement. It can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific brands, businesses, topics, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, social media signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of people including market researchers, digital reputation specialists, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, smaller businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many technology companies have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to identify and even predict consumer behavior around your brand so you can respond to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article where we explore many social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc. To learn more, visit this page:
(Are you measuring your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we look at a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media presence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. Your goal is to convert more red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro 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 their metrics on “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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, more traffic and more revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to change all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns require investing more effort and which ones need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social media activity from networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Digg, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly monitors the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
SocialMetricsPro provides website owners with many great features. Here are a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information right on your WP dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update Social Metrics Pro with one 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.
- Low server resource consumption. The plugin can generate reports very quickly, consuming very little server resources. Reports also include the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server resources used to gather and compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post type, or post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export data to 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 very simple to use … just change more red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials users have provided for 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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”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
Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step 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
The plugin is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on one website only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This license option lets you activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The price of SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin retails for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
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, 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 you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you how and where to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
We recommend getting SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to learn how to use social signals to get better search rankings.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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