Social interactions like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, comments, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the growth of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social media presence 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 the 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 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 to “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 results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social media network in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be 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 when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second biggest social media site in the world, with over 600 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence online and places great emphasis on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social networking site, GooglePlus naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are starting to interact socially on Google+ every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Digg.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Pay Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets your site has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, number and authority of +1s, 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 factors that can influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media marketing can help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your company, services, or brand on social media, avert impending crises, identify market opportunities, spy on your competition, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific topics, products, businesses, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track activity on social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by various people including marketing teams, market research, PR agencies, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately different technology providers have developed many affordable tools to facilitate the monitoring of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict consumer behavior around their brands or products allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth knowing about here:
(Are you looking for an effective tool to help you track social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple social tracking plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media presence online.
Our Featured WordPress Product Is …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media influence uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s objective is to change all red squares into greens.
(Social Metrics Pro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can operate … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts with the highest number of shares are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber and red.
The plugin developers tested Social Metrics Pro on a network of over two thousand websites over a period of three months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping their metrics on “green”. From these tests, 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, increased traffic and increased revenue!)
Learn more about the plugin here:
Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Easy To Install And Use. Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time.
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to convert more reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to apply more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social media activity across leading networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, and StumbleUpon directly from your WordPress dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to site owners. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View the latest stats from your WordPress dashboard, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- 1-click updates. Update Social Metrics Pro with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Minimal hosting resources use. The plugin can generate reports very quickly, consuming little server resources. The tool also includes the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter the data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, post type, publishing date, or by 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 Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(Social Metrics Pro is simple to use … just change all reds into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin users have provided for Social Metrics Pro:
”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
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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. turn reds into greens).
SocialMetricsPro Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee.
Plugin Cost
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This edition enables you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single website. Price includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This license option enables you to set up SocialMetricsPro on multiple sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin retails for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software developer when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price:
Additional Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, with the growth of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google now take into account various social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you immediate feedback on the success of your social media marketing strategy and guides you how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social marketing.
To learn more, check out the plugin here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin
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