You can measure social and video content performance in Google Search Console by using its platform properties and Insights report.
These reports show how your Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube content is discovered through Google, including search queries, clicks, traffic trends and audience locations.
In this article, we’ll explore how to navigate the Insights report in Search Console to spot search trends, track discovery and refine your wider GEO strategy.
TL;DR
- Google Search Console’s new platform properties feature shows how social and video content is discovered through Google, including search queries, traffic trends and top-performing content.
- Insights from these social platform properties will help businesses plan future content and identify emerging opportunities to support their wider GEO and SEO strategy.
- Supported platforms include Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube. This provides an additional perspective on content performance, complementing rather than replacing native platform analytics.
What can you learn about your social and video content performance in Search Console?
In Google Search Console, you have access to the Insights report, which provides a clear view of your top-performing social posts or videos and how traffic to this content is distributed across Google Search, Discover and Google News.
Along with this, you’ll also uncover insights on:
- How people find your social content
- Where your audience comes from
- Key search themes your brand appears for
It’s important to understand that Search Console shows how your content performs in Google search results, rather than how it performs across your entire audience on social platforms.
How people find your content
In the Insights report, the ‘How people find you’ section shows the search queries, or search terms, that people use to discover your social and video content through Google Search. This helps you understand what your audience is searching for and how they find your content.
Here you can see:
- Terms users search for
- Topics associated with your content
- Queries generating traffic
This helps you identify patterns in search behaviour, including topics your audience is actively interested in and unexpected queries driving traffic to your content.
Where your audience comes from
The ‘Where is your audience’ section shows where your audience is located by country. You can also use Performance reports within Search Console to dig deeper into how your content is performing, with filters for country, device, date and search term.
Together, these insights help you understand where your audience is and how they’re finding your content, giving you a clearer picture of what’s working across different audiences.
Identify search themes
Search Console’s Insights report also includes a ‘Groups of Queries’ card that organises the search queries that bring people to your social and video content into different themes.
Here, queries (also known as search terms) are the words or phrases people enter into Google before discovering your TikTok, Instagram, X or YouTube content.
These queries are grouped into three categories:
- Top query groups: The themes or groups of search terms that are currently driving the most traffic to your content.
- Trending up query groups: Groups of search terms that are increasing in popularity, highlighting topics where search interest is growing.
- Trending down query groups: Groups of search terms with declining search interest, helping identify topics that may be losing traction.
Reviewing these groups can give you a clearer picture of what your audience is searching for and where interest is changing. Google suggests using these insights to inform future video topics, captions and hashtag strategies.
How should you use this data in the Insights report?
The value of Search Console isn’t just in reporting on past performance. It can also help you make more informed decisions about the content you create, update and promote.
- Use search queries to inform future content – By identifying the search terms your audience is using, you can tailor your video topics, captions and hashtags to what they are searching for.
- Use the 24-hour filter to spot emerging opportunities – The 24-hour filter in the Insights report can identify sudden search traffic to recent content. Use this insight, along with what’s trending on Google Trends, to create reactive content that drives traffic to your site.
- Revisit content that starts performing – Older content can regain visibility when interest returns. Make sure to pin this content, promote it across other channels or create additional content around the topic.
- Use Search Console to understand content changes – Search Console annotations can record changes to titles and captions, helping you evaluate performance and support an ongoing optimisation cycle.
Grow your organic reach with Trio
If you want to ensure your content reaches the right audience through organic search, we can help. At Trio, our experts specialise in identifying trends and opportunities, using data and insights to create content that helps you get found on search and AI platforms.
FAQs
Google Search Console can show how social and video content is discovered through Google, including traffic trends, top-performing content, search queries, query groups and audience information. This gives businesses an additional view of content discovery alongside native social analytics, helping inform future content decisions.
Search queries and query groups can help identify what audiences are searching for, informing future video topics, captions and hashtags. The 24-hour filter can also highlight emerging opportunities, while Google Trends can help monitor rising topics and identify areas that may need further content.
No. Search Console provides insight into how social and video content performs through Google, while native platform analytics show performance within individual platforms. The two datasets complement each other and can be used together to understand both on-platform engagement and how Google discovers content.
