Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook shares, comments, and likes, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
Social signals impact search engine rankings and Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
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 assessing social media signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. 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 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 sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social media 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 droves of customers to your site, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems to have the most influence on website 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 half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social 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 GooglePlus each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones 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. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, the authority of the person sharing your posts, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people are following you, amount and growth rate of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Digg, 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 traffic and rankings. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality 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 marketing performance in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, spy on your competitors, avert impending crises, identify market opportunities, and measure the impact of campaigns. It can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific businesses, topics, brands, or products.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to monitor social activity on social media channels like blogs, forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Medium, etc., discussion boards, video/photo sharing websites, and user-generated content (UGC) 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 marketing professionals, digital reputation management (ORM) companies, market research, agencies, social engagement and community personnel, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed tools to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands or products allowing them to react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article on social media monitoring tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns here:
(Are you tracking social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media exposure online.
Let’s Review …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media presence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The user’s task is to change all the reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … turn all the 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 plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand sites over a period of three 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, focusing on improving your social marketing campaigns can can have a significant effect on your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Installation Is Easy
Social Metrics Pro is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to convert all the reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to track and monitor social activity across leading networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn.
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?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks the sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many unique features to WordPress users. Here are some:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View updated stats from your WP admin bar, add social content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updating. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification when a new version is released.
- Minimal use of server resources. Metric reports are compiled in seconds, consuming little server resources. Reports also display the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter your data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post type, 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just turn all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have written about the SocialMetricsPro 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
***
”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
Useful Tips
A step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License Edition – This edition enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on unlimited domains that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the pricing when this content was published. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account various social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives website owners immediate feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how and where to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP admin area.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to make social media marketing campaigns work for you.
For full details, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
***
***