After years of allowing website managers to monitor their websites' search performance and traffic, Google Search Console has just expanded its horizons by introducing "platform properties." This new tool lets you connect your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube profiles to visualize the performance of your social media content and traffic trends in Google Search. How Platform Properties Work Thanks to Search Console's new platform properties, you can monitor how users find your social media and video content when they search on Google. For now, this feature is compatible with Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube (I bet marketers are hoping LinkedIn will be added to this list). Data is generated independently for each platform you've connected to your Search Console dashboard, allowing you to get a specific view of your content's performance on each social network in Google Search. Note that this last point is important, as Search Console doesn't track when people view content on the social network itself; it only tracks performance data on Google. Key Metrics These are the key sections and metrics that Search Console offers for platform properties: - Performance Report: Shows the total clicks, impressions, average click-through rate (CTR), and average position in search results for the selected property. You can filter this data to discover which posts generate the most traffic on Google Search, Discover, and Google News. - Statistics Report: Provides an overview of recent traffic trends, top-performing content, and how users discover your platform's content on Google Search. - Achievements: Review your growth, milestones, and click-based achievements. - To help us better understand the metrics linked to the new platform properties, Google has provided a couple of examples of how Search Console measures specific social content formats: - Instagram Stories: If your Instagram Stories appear in Google Search, they are counted as impressions. If a Story appears in the search results and a user clicks on it, it is counted as a click. - Videos played on Google: If your video content is displayed in search results or Discover, the data is recorded as impressions. Furthermore, if a user clicks on it, it is counted as a click, even if that click opens the video in the Google player. How to activate platform properties in your Search Console dashboard To start viewing performance data for your Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube content in Google through Search Console, you must activate platform properties for each of the social networks you want to monitor.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open Search Console and click the property selector dropdown menu in the left sidebar. Click "Add property."

2. Select the social network you want to add from the list of compatible options.

3. Follow the on-screen verification instructions to securely authorize the connection.

4. Once the property is verified, a confirmation message will appear. Click "Go to property" to complete the setup.

5. Repeat this process for the rest of your social networks that are compatible with Search Console.

6. Please be patient; it may take a few days for the data to appear in the reports.