Social interactions and recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook likes, shares, and comments, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Bing and Google have started taking into account social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media 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 the web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites 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 results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social community on the planet. Research shows that a single post on Facebook 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, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGooglePlus.
(Number of monthly 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 on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide value to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
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 Google+ each month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social sites listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social signals, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, the number of people tweeting, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search engine rankings and traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as backlinks from authority sites (not as important as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only find ways 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.
(Use social media to improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand, company, or products on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, avert disasters, and spot opportunities for engagement. Additionally, social media monitoring can also provide vital information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific brands, topics, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including online reputation management (ORM) specialists, market researchers, marketing professionals, agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, small businesses do not have the budget to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of service providers have developed affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active monitoring of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to identify what consumers are saying about your brand or products allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
Go here to learn more about social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth knowing about:
(Do you know how to effectively measure your social signals?)
In this article, we review a simple, yet effective social monitoring plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media influence.
Let’s Review …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media exposure online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures how each signal is performing and displays either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s objective is simple … turn more red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber or red.
The plugin developers tested SocialMetricsPro 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 everything “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 can significantly affect your search rankings, traffic and revenue!)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Installation Is Easy
Social Metrics Pro is really easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to change all the reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns need more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track The Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally monitor social media activity across leading social networks like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Digg directly from your WP dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro 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 are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
SocialMetricsPro offers site owners with many features. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Quick and simple to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using built-in and external widgets. View updated information right on your WordPress dashboard, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. You can update SocialMetricsPro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update it manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications whenever a new version is released.
- Minimal consumption of hosting resources. Social reports are generated fast, consuming very little server resources. The tool also includes the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory used to gather and compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter information 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 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 turn all the reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials users have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
“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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This enables you to activate SocialMetricsPro on a single website. It includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This license allows you to activate SocialMetricsPro on multiple websites that you own. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
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 immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing campaigns and shows them how to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to improve social visibility and see more of your keywords getting better rankings on search engines.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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