Social recommendations like +1s on Google+, Facebook likes, comments, and shares, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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. 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 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 a sensible one - “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google naturally wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With almost 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network on the planet. Research shows that an average post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if it seems like Facebook is not driving droves of customers to your site, don’t be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence website rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter andGoogle+.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest 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 readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
Google’s own social networking site 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 actively using GooglePlus every week. Source: Internet Live Stats)
In addition to the big three social media giants listed above, there are a number of other social media networks that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that can affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track various social signals, including:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. how many tweets and retweets a site has, how influential the person sending tweets is, trending topics, etc.
- Google+ – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has, authority of adds and shares, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious signals that can indirectly influence search engine traffic and rankings. These include desirable and negative factors, such as links from authority sites (backlinks) (not as relevant as they once were, but still a factor) [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into your company’s overall visibility on social media, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, spot potential opportunities for engagement, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users, and assess competitor activity and market dominance. It can also provide you with vital data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, businesses, products, or brands.
As a business intelligence tool, the ability to track social media is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, often carried out by a cross-section of groups that include market researchers, marketing professionals, online reputation managers, social engagement and community staff, social marketing agencies, and professional sales reps. Typically, many small businesses don’t have the budget to pay media monitoring professionals to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their digital reputation.
Fortunately different technology companies have developed affordable tools to facilitate the active tracking of a broad spectrum of social media channels, allowing companies to track consumer behavior around their brands allowing them to respond proactively to conversations and interact with online users in a timely manner.
We have written a detailed article about social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
(Can you measure your social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet highly effective plugin for WordPress websites and blogs for monitoring social signals and improving your social media presence online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to make increasing your social media presence online uncomplicated. It is built on a simple concept – the plugin measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s goal is to change all the reds into greens.
(A system that anyone can operate … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. This simplifies your social analytics. Posts that get shared the most show up green. Posts with low social media activity display 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 everything “green”. From these tests, they were able to notice 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 marketing can result in higher search engine rankings, increased traffic and increased revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Ready To Use In Minutes.
SocialMetricsPro installs just like every other plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, your job is to change more reds into greens. SocialMetricsPro tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know which social campaigns need more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Social Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro allows you to monitor social media activity from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Digg.
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?
- And more …
With Social Metrics Pro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Product Features
SocialMetricsPro provides many features to WordPress users. Here are some of those:
- Fast and easy to install and set up. Be up and running in no time.
- SocialMetricsPro Is Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with external and built-in widgets. Social Metrics Pro displays updated information from your WP dashboard, display socially popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updates. Update Social Metrics Pro in one click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also choose to receive an email notification when new versions are released.
- Minimal hosting resources consumption. The plugin can generate reports in seconds, consuming little hosting resources. Report generation also includes the amount of time spent retrieving information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro lets you sort, search and filter the data however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study posts related to certain topics, and even filter the results by post type, publishing date, category, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export and plot filtered, sorted data and custom queries 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.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just convert red squares into greens!)
Testimonials
Here are a few of the testimonials that plugin users have written about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”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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”If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve.” Goes one of the most important sayings in business. And this is particularly true for tracking of your social mentions I found. There were two things that helped me a great deal to increase sharing after installing Social Metrics: First, I was able to see that some of my articles would perform much better on networks I wasn’t particularly using, such as StumbleUpon for example. Secondly, I could filter out the best performing content more easily and analyse what makes my readers share. Since then I have focused strongly on producing and replicating those posts that performed best.” Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer
Product Tips
Social Metrics Pro includes a practical guide on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Product Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, complete refund guarantee.
Software Cost
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This license option allows you to run SocialMetricsPro on a single website. Cost includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site Licensing – This lets you run SocialMetricsPro on all the sites that you own. It includes free lifetime updates and support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Price details for the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the product developer when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price here:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
We Recommend
As mentioned earlier, Google has been elevating the importance given to 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 you immediate feedback on the success of your social marketing campaigns and guides you where and how to direct your efforts in order to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more directly from your WP dashboard.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to use social signals to get better search rankings.
For more details, visit the plugin website: Social Metrics Pro – Social Analytics Plugin For WordPress
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