Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media 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 businesses to build their social presence 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 tend to change too quickly to fully map out. 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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as websites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search engine.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. 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, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Google+ and Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are interacting on Google+ every month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
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,Reddit, and Digg.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your URL has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has accrued, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number 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 factors that can indirectly influence search engine 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 site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can improve your results online)
Tracking social media activity allows you to gain insights into your brand’s online visibility on social media, identify market opportunities, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied customers, spy on your competition, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, topics, businesses, 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 various groups that include market researchers, online reputation management (ORM) specialists, marketing professionals, social media marketing agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and sales teams. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different service providers have developed a range of tools to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track what consumers are saying about your brand or products allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about. For more details:
(Do you know how to effectively measure social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media exposure.
Our Recommended WordPress Plugin …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics For WordPress
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin that is designed to make growing your social media influence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. Your job is to turn more reds into greens.
(A system that anyone can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of over two thousand 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 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 the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social marketing can result in better search rankings, more web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details go here:
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, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Be Up And Running In No Time
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP admin section and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s job is to convert all the reds into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns need you to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to monitor social activity from networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest directly from your WP admin area.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 Social Metrics Pro, all of this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively monitors the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many great features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of these:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Ready to go to work in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with built-in and external widgets. View the latest information right on your WordPress dashboard, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrades. You can update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever new versions are released.
- Plugin uses minimal hosting resources. The plugin generates reports fast, consuming little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post type, category, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries 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 really simple to use … just turn more reds into greens!)
Testimonials From Customers
Below are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have submitted for SocialMetricsPro:
”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
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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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
A step-by-step guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete money-back guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing set by the software seller when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get 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 how important social media is to their online success. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives website owners instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them where and how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress admin area.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social media marketing work for you.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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