Google is making another run at social. Aside from Google Plus, the search behemoth announced that Google Analytics has unveiled a new set of social engagem ent reports and functionality that lets websites track social interaction with their content.

As Search Engine Land reports, this is a welcome addition to its new +1 button, with the new Google Analytics reports and functionality enabling marketers to measure the impact of social actions in and outside websites (either through a Facebook like, +1 click or LinkedIn share).

The new reports in Google Analytics include:

The Social Engagement report shows site behavior changes for visits that include clicks that initiate any social actions. Naturally, +1 is included automatically, but you can also code in other sharing buttons. With this report, web sites can take advantage of Google Analytics to try to understand whether there is a difference in behaviour between visitors that share, those that don’t share, or if there is a difference between the “types” of sharers. For example, can you find your “champion sharers?”

In December, Google and Bing acknowledged that in deference to the ever-increasing popularity of social media online, the two search giants were beginning to use social signals to help rank regular web results. That move left many a marketer wondering two things: what signals are the two search behemoths counting; and how much weight do they have on search results?

SEOMoz to the rescue.

The SEO software provider set out to understand just how well social metrics correlate with higher rankings in the top 30 results in Google’s web search results, looking at the quantity of shares on Facebook, Tweets on Twitter and shares on Google Buzz.

Every brand knows the importance of a strong SEO strategy online, but as Facebook remains the social network of choice, should brands be applying the same processes to their Facebook pages?

In a word, yes. This has been reinforced by a recent study conducted by SEO software firm BrightEdge, which found that while nearly all major brands ensure that their web pages incorporate search engine tactics (at least to some degree), “only 30 percent incorporate that same logic into their Facebook pages.” The company found while the web sites of the top 200 brands showed at or near the top of Google search results for their names, 70 percent didn’t have their Facebook or Twitter pages in the top 20 results.