Social interactions and recommendations like Facebook likes, comments, and shares, +1s on Google+, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been elevating the importance given to social signals as part of its ranking algorithm for several years now.
Note: Google encourages businesses 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 web spam team 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 reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign too much 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 sites that provide value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google naturally wants to rank higher in its search results.
Social Signals – Which Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines look to for measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media community in the world. Research shows that an average post can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one seems to be buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss Facebook as an important part of your online business strategy, as Google uses data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems to have the most influence on search engine rankings of all social media sites, like Google+ or Twitter.
(Number of active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the next largest social media site in the world, with over 500 million tweets sent out each day. Twitter plays a significant role as a global influencer online and places great importance on tweeting posts that provide great value to followers over the amount of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google+
As Google’s own social site, GooglePlus 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 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 social media networks that provide important social metrics, such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search engine rankings)
Social Signals – Which Ones Should You Pay Attention To?
Search engines track various social signals, including the following:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook comments, likes, and shares you have, growth rate of likes and shares, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, the authority of the person sending a tweet, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many people follow you, amount and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. growth rate of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, upvotes on Digg, etc.
- Other signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search engine traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be irrelevant by other users [negative].
As a business owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track and analyze your social media in order to improve your business results.
(Using social media can improve your business results)
Social media monitoring allows you to gain insights into what people are saying about your products, company, or brand on social media, assess competitor activity and market share, spot new opportunities for engagement, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by embittered customers, and measure the impact of your marketing campaigns. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide valuable information about emerging trends and what clients and consumers think about specific brands, topics, businesses, or products.
As a tool for business intelligence, the ability to monitor social media channels like blogging, forums, social networking sites, micro-blogging platforms, discussion boards, video sites, and user-generated content (UGC) is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by various groups that include marketing teams, PR agencies, market research, social marketing agencies, sales teams, and social engagement and community staff. 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 online reputation.
Fortunately various technology companies have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing companies to track what is being said online about their brands or products allowing them to react to conversations and interact with consumers in various social media platforms.
We have written a detailed article where we explore several social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that can affect your business,etc. More info:
(Can you measure social signals effectively?)
In this article, you will learn about a simple, yet highly effective social monitoring plugin for your website and growing your social media influence online.
Announcing …
SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics premium WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – SocialMetricsPro measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s task is simple … convert all the red squares into greens.
(A standard operating procedure that anyone can follow … turn all the reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most are colored green. Posts with low social media activity display amber or red.
The developers of SocialMetricsPro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ 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”. According to the plugin developers, 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 they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to SocialMetricsPro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can result in better search rankings, increased traffic and increased revenue!)
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Benefits Of Using Social Metrics Pro
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using SocialMetricsPro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WP Dashboard on your web site:
Easy And Quick To Install
Social Metrics Pro installs just like every other plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin account and activate.
Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s task is to turn reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals so you know where to invest more effort and where to optimize.
Track Only Signals You Care About
Social Metrics Pro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social activity from social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Digg directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro helps you get answers to questions like:
- Which social media 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 Social Metrics Pro, all this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(Social Metrics Pro actively tracks social signals from the social media sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
Social Metrics Pro provides many features to website owners. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Be up and running in no time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality with built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information right on your WP dashboard, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updating. Update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email when new plugin updates are released.
- Consumes minimal resources. Reporting is fast, consuming little server resources. Report generation also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server memory used to gather and compile the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sort, Search & Filter Features: Social Metrics Pro allows you to sort, search and filter information as you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by post authors, category, publishing date, or post type.
- 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.
(Social Metrics Pro is very simple to use … just convert all the reds into greens!)
Feedback From Plugin Users
Here are some of the testimonials and comments plugin customers have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”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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”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
Useful Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your site for social media success (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and users get lifetime updates and new releases for free with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 60-day, full refund guarantee.
Software Price
SocialMetricsPro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This option enables you to activate Social Metrics Pro on one website only. Price includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This allows you to configure Social Metrics Pro on unlimited web sites that you own. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: Current pricing for the SocialMetricsPro software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the pricing shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Plugin Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
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. Social Metrics Pro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives WordPress users instant feedback on the success of their social media marketing strategy and shows them how to improve their results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WP admin area.
Get SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to outperform your competitors on social media.
For full details, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics For WordPress
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