Social recommendations like Twitter retweets and mentions, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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 the web spam team Matt Cutts has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social media, 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 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 true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines like Google look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social media community in the world. Research shows that a single 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 site, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search rankings more than other social media sites, like GooglePlus and Twitter.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest 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 on the cybersphere and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social 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 interacting socially on Google+ each year. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites worth paying attention to, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals to search engines that can affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Bing and Google include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, shares, and comments you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a URL has, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – 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. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious factors that can influence search engine rankings. These include positive 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 grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to monitor, measure and analyze your social signals in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your brand’s overall visibility on social media, assess competitor activity and market dominance, spot market opportunities, be alerted to crises, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers are thinking about specific products, topics, businesses, or brands.
As a tool for business intelligence, being able to track social media channels like blogs, forums, social networking platforms, micro-blogging platforms, message boards, video sites, and user-generated content is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of groups that include marketing professionals, market research, PR companies, agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many technology providers have developed affordable tools and solutions to facilitate the monitoring of a wide spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to identify consumer behavior around their brands so they can react to conversations and engage with online users in a timely fashion.
We have written a detailed article about social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
(Can you monitor your social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence online.
Presenting …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make improving your social media exposure uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the tool measures how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The user’s job is simple … change all red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any website owner can follow … just turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics with Excel-like conditional color formatting. Posts that get shared the most 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 three 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 their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, improving your social marketing can result in higher search rankings, increased web traffic and an increase in revenue!)
For more details go here:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your website:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
Social Metrics Pro installs like every WP plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your goal is to turn red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to put more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Track Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro lets you centrally monitor social activity from networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Digg.
SocialMetricsPro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media 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 just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly monitors social signals from the sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides web site owners with many features. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and implement. Be up and running in minutes.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. SocialMetricsPro shows updated information from your WP dashboard, display socially popular content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click upgrades. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when a new version is released.
- Minimal usage of hosting resources. Reporting is very quickly, consuming little hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time it took to retrieve information and the server memory used to compile data.
Additional features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post authors, post type, publishing date, or category.
- Export Data: You can export filtered data and custom queries 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just turn reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are some of the testimonials plugin users have submitted regarding the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
SocialMetricsPro – Tips
A step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
The software is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License Edition – This option lets you set up Social Metrics Pro on 1 website only. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License – This license enables you to install Social Metrics Pro on multiple domains that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: Pricing for SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product sells for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin author when you visit the product website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
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.
Download This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines now take into account social signals when determining website ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore the importance of social media. 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 where and how to improve your 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.
We recommend getting this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social marketing results professionally.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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