For years, social platforms could tell you how a post performed inside their own walls, but never what someone typed into Google on the way there. A July update from Google finally closes that gap. Here's what the new reporting covers, why it matters for discovery, and how to start putting it to work.

What Google's new platform properties do

On July 7, Google introduced a new Search Console feature called platform properties, and by the end of the month it had opened to everyone worldwide.

• Link an Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube account to Search Console and you unlock query-level reporting.

• See how your posts surface across Google Search, Discover, and News, even without owning a website.

• Each connected account arrives with its own Performance, Insights, and Achievements views, and profiles verified through a claimed Search profile are pulled in automatically.

Why this closes a long-standing blind spot

The social platforms’ built-in analytics tools have always stopped at the edge of the app. They could show reach, saves, and watch time. But they can’t tell you if off-platform web searches are what actually led a viewer to your post in the first place.

That missing piece is what kept "social SEO" more theory than practice. Now that the actual search queries are visible for content you publish off your own site, the words people use to find you become something you can read and act on.

How creators and brands can put the data to work

• Link each profile in Search Console to get started.

• Open the query groups card in the Insights report to see which search themes are climbing or fading, then feed those into your next caption, hashtag, or topic.

• Watch the 24-hour view so you can catch a fresh search spike while there's still time to cross-promote that post elsewhere.

• Export the data from each platform and line it up in one place to see where search discovery is genuinely paying off.

• Experiment with title or caption rewrites to see if you can impact performance.

• Check out Google's Guide for more tips.

Why it matters

For the first time, creators and brands can see the exact search language leading people to their content, which turns captions, titles, first frames, and hashtags into measurable SEO surfaces rather than guesswork.

Subscribe to our monthly LinkedIn Newsletter, The D'Brief, to stay current on the biggest social media updates!