Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook shares, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines are now taking into account a range of social signals to help determine website 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. 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 full ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more 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 tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to rank higher in its search engine results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community on the planet. It has been estimated that a single post 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 online business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over 500 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 readers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google Plus
Google’s own social media site naturally carries a significant degree of 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 Google+ each day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social metrics, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Bing and Google track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, shares, and likes you have, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person sharing your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on Reddit, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can influence search rankings and traffic. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate (CTR) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of poor quality by visitors [negative].
As a business owner, it’s important to not only develop your social media presence, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your company, brand, or products on social media, identify market opportunities, assess competitor activity, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by dissatisfied users, and measure the impact of campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide vital data about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific topics, businesses, products, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, social media 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 market researchers, online reputation management companies, marketing teams, sales teams, social engagement and community staff, and agencies. Typically, small businesses do not can’t afford to pay social media monitoring professionals to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately a number of providers have created affordable tools and solutions that facilitate the active monitoring of a wide range of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your products or brand so you can react to conversations and engage with online users in various social media platforms.
Go here to learn more about social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth knowing about:
(Can you track social signals effectively?)
This article explores a simple, yet effective social monitoring tool for WordPress and improving your social media exposure online.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics plugin that is designed to help users improve their social media exposure in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and returns either a red or green indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … convert more red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that receive the most shares show up green. Posts with low social media activity are colored amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ 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 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 campaigns can result in better search rankings, more web traffic and more revenue!)
More info:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
SocialMetricsPro is really easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your admin user account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to convert all reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to apply more effort and where to optimize.
Track The Signals From The Networks You Care About
Social Metrics Pro allows you to centrally track and monitor social media activity from networks like GooglePlus, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social 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 of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks social signals from the social sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many unique features to WP users. Below we have listed just some:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to use in very little time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality with external and built-in widgets. View the latest information right on your WP admin bar, display social content on your blog sidebar or anywhere on your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update SocialMetricsPro with one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Low-resource consumption. Reporting is fast, using little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server memory used to gather the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro lets you sort, search and filter your data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by category, post type, post authors, or publishing date.
- Export Data: You can export and plot filtered data and custom queries in 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 really simple to use … just turn all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments that users have written about Social Metrics Pro:
”As with any cool plugin, it solves a very simple problem – how to view how well your WordPress posts are being promoted.” Adam Small, Marketing Tech Blog
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“Social Metrics Takes WordPress Stats to the Next Level.” Lorraine Ball, Creative Director, Roundpeg
Product Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide showing you how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
Product Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Plugin Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This license option enables you to run SocialMetricsPro on 1 site only. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on unlimited sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Social Metrics Pro software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product is selling for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual price charged by the product author when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest price here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Our Recommendation
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
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 WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and shows them where to direct their efforts in order to improve their results.
Social Metrics Pro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to make social media marketing measurable.
For full details, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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