Social interactions like Facebook comments, +1s on GooglePlus, etc. are called social signals.
With the increase in importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account social signals when determining 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, instead of aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as social trends and relationships can change at a moment’s notice. Without a full ‘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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to rank higher in its search listings.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social community on the planet. It has been estimated that one great post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving a ton of sales on your website, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses 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.
(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 day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of authority online, even if it is still a fledgling online community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are interacting socially on Google+ each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines track a number of social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, comments, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a URL has accrued, number 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 factors that can influence search traffic and rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop 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.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your business results)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, products, or brand on social media, spy on your competitors, identify opportunities for engagement, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, and measure the impact of campaigns. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, brands, businesses, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, social monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various people including market research, marketing professionals, online reputation managers, social engagement and community personnel, professional sales reps, and agencies. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different providers have made available a range of tools that facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to identify and even predict consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have created a detailed article listing many social media monitoring tools that you may want to check out. Go here for more information:
(Are you looking for an effective tool to help you measure social signals?)
This article discusses a simple, yet effective plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and growing your social media influence.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-install social analytics plugin for WordPress that is designed to help you increase your social media presence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is to change all red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin 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 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, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can positively impact your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
For more details go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more right from your WordPress Dashboard on your site:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other plugin. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin area and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to change more red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which campaigns need more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track The Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social activity from social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Digg, and LinkedIn directly from your WP admin area.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to web site owners. Here are a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Be up and running in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information from your WordPress admin bar, display popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrades. Update Social Metrics Pro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications when new versions are released.
- Plugin uses very little server resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming very little server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server resources used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, category, or publishing date.
- 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 turn all the red squares into greens!)
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials that plugin users have published about 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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”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
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a practical guide on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites Edition – This lets you use SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing when this review was published. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin developer when you visit the product site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here:
Additional Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
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 WordPress users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing campaigns and shows them where and how to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social marketing.
For more information, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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