Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the increased importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines have started taking into account a range of social signals when determining a website’s ranking.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their brand on social media 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 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 to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With over 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most influential social network in the world. Research shows that a single post on Facebook can reach over 100,000 users, so even if no one is 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 to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search rankings of all social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next biggest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every single day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to readers over the volume of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social site, Google+ naturally carries a significant degree of 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 month. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social sites that provide important social signals, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones 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 a person has, 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 followers on Google+ your URL has accrued, spread rate of adds and shares, 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 signals that can indirectly influence search traffic. These include positive and undesirable factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [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 develop your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, products, or company on social media, be alerted to impending crises, spot market opportunities, measure the impact of campaigns, and assess competitor activity and market share. It can also provide you with valuable information about emerging trends and what consumers and clients think about specific products, topics, brands, or businesses.
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, typically carried out by various people including market research, digital reputation managers, marketing professionals, social marketing agencies, professional sales reps, and social engagement and community personnel. Typically, smaller businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately a number of providers have created tools and solutions to facilitate the tracking of a variety of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict what customers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about their brands or products allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and engage with consumers in a timely fashion.
We have written a comprehensive article on social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that can affect your business,etc. Go here to learn more:
(Do you know how to effectively track social signals?)
In this article, we explore a simple social media monitoring plugin for WordPress and increasing your social media influence.
Our Recommended WordPress Product …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-install social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make growing your social media influence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your task is to turn all reds into greens.
(A system that any website owner can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts with highest number of shares are colored 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+ sites 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”. From these tests, they noticed 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 Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in higher search engine rankings, more web traffic and more revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Here we have listed just some of the benefits of using SocialMetricsPro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Fast And Simple To Install And Implement. Ready To Go To Work In No Time.
Social Metrics Pro installs like any plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s objective is to turn all the red squares into greens. Social Metrics Pro tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns require more effort and which campaigns need to be better optimized.
Select Only Social Signals From Social Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social media activity across leading networks like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, and Pinterest directly from your WP dashboard.
SocialMetricsPro 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 on social media?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively monitors the social sites that you care most about!)
Features
Social Metrics Pro provides a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Fast and simple to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- Social Metrics Pro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. View the latest stats from your WP admin bar, add popular content to your blog sidebar or anywhere in your site using point-and-click widgets.
- 1-click updates. You can update the plugin with a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to receive an email notification whenever new plugin updates are released.
- Plugin uses very little resources. Reporting is in seconds, using minimal hosting resources. The tool also includes the amount of time used to retrieve the information and the server memory used to compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort and filter data as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by publishing date, category, post type, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot data in 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 more reds into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Below are a few of the testimonials and feedback that users have submitted regarding Social Metrics Pro:
”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 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 – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro includes a step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
Social Metrics Pro is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 60-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product License Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you configure SocialMetricsPro on 1 site only. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multiple Sites License Edition – This enables you to activate Social Metrics Pro on all the web sites that you own. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this content was published. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the plugin website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing:
Additional Product Information
Social Metrics Pro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Highly Recommend This
As mentioned earlier, Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives WordPress users immediate feedback on the success of their social marketing strategy and guides them how 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 WordPress admin area.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to measure your social marketing results professionally.
For more information, check out the plugin here: SocialMetricsPro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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