Social interactions and recommendations like Twitter mentions and retweets, Facebook comments, shares, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
With the rising importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals when determining a site’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners 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. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s own web spam team 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search listings.
Social Signal Sources
Social sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most influential social community in the world. It has been estimated that a single post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your website, don’t be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research shows that Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all 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 half a billion 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 followers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: Internet Live Stats)
Google+
As Google’s own social networking site, Google+ 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 month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other sites that should not be ignored, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(A number of 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 Google and Bing include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook shares, likes, and comments a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person tweeting is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many people are following you, number of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related signals that can indirectly influence search traffic. These include desirable and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to develop your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media to help improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, identify potential market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by disgruntled customers. It can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific brands, topics, products, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal monitoring 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 teams, online reputation management companies, market researchers, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and sales teams. Typically, many small businesses don’t can’t afford to pay a media monitoring service to continually track their coverage in the media.
Fortunately many providers have developed affordable tools to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products so you can respond to conversations and interact with online users in various social media platforms.
We have created a comprehensive article listing several social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. For more information, go here:
(Are you searching for an effective way to track social signals?)
In this article, we discuss a simple social tracking plugin for WordPress and growing your social media influence.
Introducing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics WordPress Plugin
Description Of Plugin
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics plugin that is designed to help you increase your social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. The user’s goal is to change more red squares into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a system that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. 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 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 their metrics on “green”. According to the plugin developers, they noticed a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and their revenue increased by 310%.
(According to the plugin developers, focusing on improving your social media marketing campaigns can can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Quick Installation
Social Metrics Pro is very easy to install. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s goal is to convert reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Track The Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social media activity from networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Pinterest.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which posts are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro constantly tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Social Metrics Pro Features
Social Metrics Pro offers many unique features to WordPress users. Below we have listed some of those:
- Quick and easy to install and set up. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. View the latest information from your WP admin bar, display social content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click upgrading. Update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive email notifications when new versions are released.
- Minimal use of server resources. Reporting is in seconds, using minimal server resources. Reports also display the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching And Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort and filter information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, category, publishing date, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is really simple to use … just change all reds into greens!)
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that users have written about SocialMetricsPro:
”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 is one of the recipes for Social WordPress. You can integrate it quickly and easily on your WordPress site to view your performance on social networks” Jean-Francois Arseneault, Arseneault Consultation
Social Metrics Pro Plugin – Tips
Social Metrics Pro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
The software is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Product License Pricing
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site License – This lets you configure Social Metrics Pro on a single domain. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This license option lets you run SocialMetricsPro on all the sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost of purchasing the Social Metrics Pro product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the product website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Product Info
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Install This Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increase in importance of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account a range of social signals to help determine 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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and guides you where to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WordPress admin area.
Get this plugin if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to shorten your path to success with social media marketing.
To learn more, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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