Social recommendations like Facebook comments, likes, and shares, Twitter retweets and mentions, etc. are called social signals.
With the rise of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing now take into account a range of social signals when determining website ranking.
Note: Google encourages businesses to build their social 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 perfect ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to social signals 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 true value normally develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the sites that Google wants to ascribe higher search rankings to.
Social Signals – Which Social Sites Matter?
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant social network in the world. Research shows that one great 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 website, you should not be quick to dismiss the importance of Facebook in your business strategy, as Google uses social data and information from Facebook when determining your search rankings. In fact, Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites, like Twitter orGoogle+.
(Number of 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 day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great emphasis on tweeting posts that provide great value to readers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
Google’s own social site naturally carries great authority online, even if it is still a fledgling social community compared to sites like Facebook and Twitter.
(More people are actively using Google+ each week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big three listed above, there are a number of other sites worth getting to know, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.
(Social media sites provide important signals that could affect your search rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Search engines like Google and Bing track a number of 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, how influential the person sharing the information is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (influential users), how many followers on GooglePlus your site page has accrued, amount 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 factors that can indirectly influence search rankings. These include desirable and undesirable factors, such as improving clickthrough rate [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by visitors [negative].
As a website owner, it’s important to not only find ways to grow your social media presence, but also to be able to monitor and analyze your social media marketing campaigns in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your results online)
Social media monitoring allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your services, brand, or company on social media, be alerted to impending crises, spy on your competition, measure the impact of campaigns, and identify opportunities for engagement. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide you with valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific businesses, products, brands, or topics.
As a business intelligence tool, being able to track social activity on 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 PR staff, market researchers, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, professional sales reps, and social media marketing agencies. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have the budget to pay a media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately many technology companies have developed a range of affordable and even free tools to facilitate the monitoring of a broad spectrum of social media channels, enabling companies to identify and even predict what is being said online about their products or brands allowing them to react to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
If you want to learn more about social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business,etc, refer to this article:
(Can you monitor your social signals effectively?)
In this article, we look at a simple plugin for WordPress users for monitoring social signals and increasing your social media influence.
Introducing …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
SocialMetricsPro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help users grow their social media influence online in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple concept – SocialMetricsPro tracks how each signal is performing and displays either a red or green indicator. Your job is to turn all the red squares into greens.
(A system that anyone can follow … 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 show up amber or red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ sites over a period of three 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 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 rankings, more web traffic and increased revenue!)
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Likes, Tweets, +1s, Pins and more directly from your WP Dashboard on your site:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs like every other WP plugin. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Very Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the user’s goal is to change reds into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social media signals the way Google sees it so you know which social marketing campaigns need you to invest more effort and which need to be better optimized.
Select Only Signals From The Networks You Care About
SocialMetricsPro lets you track and monitor social media activity from networks like Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, Digg, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon directly from your WP dashboard.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social media networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which are my most popular posts?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all of this information is available on-demand, with just one click.
(SocialMetricsPro constantly tracks the social sites that you care most about!)
Plugin Features
SocialMetricsPro offers many great features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Fast and easy to install and use. Ready to go to work in minutes.
- Widgets And Extensions Ready. You can extend the plugin’s functionality using built-in and external widgets. Access the latest information from your WordPress dashboard, display popular content on your sidebar or anywhere on your site using point-and-click widgets.
- One-click updates. Update SocialMetricsPro in a single click via the WordPress Updates page, or update it manually. You can also choose to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Plugin suits even the smallest hosting configuration. Metric reports are compiled in seconds, using very little hosting resources. The tool also displays the amount of time spent retrieving the information and the server resources consumed when gathering the data.
Additional plugin features include:
- Sorting, Searching & Filtering Features: SocialMetricsPro 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 post authors, publishing date, category, or by post type.
- 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 the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is really simple to use … just convert red squares into greens!)
Testimonials From Users
Below are some of the testimonials customers have provided for SocialMetricsPro:
”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
Plugin Tips
A practical, step-by-step guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your campaigns and improve your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens) is also included.
SocialMetricsPro Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free lifetime updates and support, backed by a no-risk, sixty-day, full refund guarantee.
Product Price
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This lets you use SocialMetricsPro on one web site only. Includes free lifetime updates and free support. Price = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This license option allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on all sites that you own. Includes free lifetime upgrades and free support. Cost = $47.00 (one-time).
Please Note: The cost to purchase SocialMetricsPro depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software developer when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Plugin
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, search engines like Google and Bing are now taking into account social signals to help determine website ranking.
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 strategy and shows you where and how to improve your results.
SocialMetricsPro is an ideal tool for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
Get Social Metrics Pro if you own or manage WordPress sites and would like to improve social media visibility and see more of your keywords getting ranked on search engines.
For more information, visit the plugin website: SocialMetricsPro – Social Analytics Plugin
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