Social interactions like +1s on Google+, Facebook comments, likes, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals to help determine 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 media, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a reliable ‘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 to “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 ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
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 influential social community in the world. Research shows that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, 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 next 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 importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are actively using GooglePlus each month. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a web page has, how influential the person sharing your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on Google+ your URL has, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search engine traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (not as influential as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to find ways to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, identify market opportunities, take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, measure the impact of campaigns, and assess competitor activity and market share. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide you with vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific businesses, topics, products, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to track social media 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 marketing professionals, market research, digital reputation managers, agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately a number of technology companies have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling you to track what consumers are saying about your products or brand allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools and technologies that you may want to check out. To learn more about this go here:
(Can you track your social signals effectively?)
This article discusses a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs for monitoring social media signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s goal is simple … change all the reds into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … simply turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ websites 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 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can positively can have a dramatic impact on your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits Of Using SocialMetricsPro
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In No Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your task is to change all reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns need you to invest more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track The Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides WordPress users with many unique features. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and simple to install and use. Be up and running in very little time.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest information right on your WP dashboard, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click upgrading. You can update Social Metrics Pro with a single 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.
- Plugin works the smallest hosting configuration. Reports are compiled very quickly, consuming very little hosting resources. Reports also display the amount of time it took to retrieve 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 the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, category, post authors, or publishing date.
- 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is simple to use … just change more reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin customers have written about the Social Metrics Pro plugin:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.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 guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license lets you activate Social Metrics Pro on one web site only. Price includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License – This edition enables you to activate Social Metrics Pro on all the sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the product is selling for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin seller when you visit the site and there may be 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.
Install The Product
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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and shows them how and where to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to see measurable results.
For more details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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