Google Integrates Social Media Posts into Google Business Profiles

Google steadily lowered the value of a social media presence as a ranking factor on its Search Engine Results Page (SERP) until it became a non-factor. Over a decade ago, every business was encouraged to link their social accounts and regularly post to give them a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) boost. Google has since toned down the ranking factor of social media, instead making its own first-party Google Posts the social messaging it wants businesses to use on Search and Maps. Social media is still an important part of marketing however and despite Google not using it heavily as a ranking factor, it is a customer touchpoint that consumers expect, and Google still intends to present to their users.

Google has linked social media accounts to local panels and Google Business Profiles (GBPs) for some time but is now taking it a step further by not only showing all the business’s social profiles on their GBP, but their latest posts on those platforms as well. Google updated its Google Business Profile help documentation to state:
“Business Profiles with an associated social media link may find their social media posts surfaced on their Business Profile automatically.”

Google tries to keep businesses and users only using Google platforms as much as possible, but the unique utility of other social media sites can’t be perfectly replicated. While Google will still encourages Google Posts, the standard marketing practices of social media are something that every business will always engage in, and something that Google will need to share.

While businesses can manage which social media profiles are associated with their GBP, to a limit of one account per social media platform, the posts displayed from those profiles are automatic and cannot be controlled. As this is a new update from Google, one not fully implemented and the extent of affected businesses unknown, best practices are yet to be conceived and its full impact on GBP clicks is unknown. Businesses will simply have to keep marketing how they always do on other social media platforms and only once the metrics are gathered on how Google social links effect consumer behavior, then marketers can start refining their messaging to how it appears on Google’s platforms.