Social recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing have started 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. 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 perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine listings.
Social Signals – Which Social Media Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a massive amount of sales on your website, 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 search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out every day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers 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 networking site 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 Google+ every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth getting to know, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the number of people sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search engine rankings. 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 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 and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, identify new market opportunities, avert impending crises, and assess competitor activity. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, brands, topics, or businesses.
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, typically carried out by various groups that include digital reputation management (ORM) companies, marketing professionals, market researchers, sales teams, agencies, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, many small businesses do not can’t afford to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of providers have made available tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their products or brands so they can react to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have written a comprehensive article where we explore a number of social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out. More info:
(Are you tracking social signals effectively?)
In this article, we explore a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs for tracking social media signals and growing your social media influence.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the tool measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s job is to change more red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn all the 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 plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of 3 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 were able to notice 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing can affect your search rankings, web traffic and revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below are just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP admin area and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to change more reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals so you know which social marketing campaigns need more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you monitor social media activity across leading social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Digg, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.
SocialMetricsPro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors the social media sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers WordPress users with many unique features. Here are some:
- Quick and simple to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest information from your WordPress dashboard, add socially popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin works the smallest hosting. Metric reports are compiled in seconds, consuming minimal server resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources consumed when gathering and compiling data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort, search and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, category, publishing date, or post type.
- Export Data: You can export data 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just change all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials that users have published about Social Metrics Pro:
”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
***
”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
Social Metrics Pro – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Product Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This allows you to run Social Metrics Pro on one domain only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This enables you to use Social Metrics Pro on unlimited sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the product author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
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 This Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines have started taking into account a range of social signals to help determine a website’s ranking.
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 media marketing strategy and shows them how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro 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 would like to make social marketing work for you.
For full details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
***
***