Google made a quiet announcement on early July 2026 that changes how I think about social media for local businesses.
You can now add your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube accounts to Google Search Console as “platform properties.” Once connected, you see exactly how your social posts perform in Google Search: impressions, clicks, and the specific keywords each post ranks for.
That data has never been available to business owners. Until recently, your Instagram Reel could be sitting on page one of Google for a buying keyword and you had no way to know it.
What you actually get
A platform property comes with three reports:
- Performance. Total clicks and impressions from Google Search, filterable by individual post and by search query. You can export all of it.
- Insights. A summary view of recent traffic trends and your top performing posts on Google.
- Achievements. Milestone tracking, like crossing a new clicks threshold in a 28 day window.
The query data is the gold. Knowing that one Reel pulls impressions for “invisalign cost tampa” while ten others pull nothing tells you exactly what to make next.
How to set it up
- Log into Google Search Console
- Click the property dropdown at the top left
- Click “Add property”
- Choose Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube and follow the authorization steps
Each account connects individually. There’s no bulk import, so budget a couple of minutes per profile.
Two caveats. Google is rolling this out gradually over the next few weeks, so if you don’t see the option yet, check back every few days. And after you connect, it takes a few days for data to start appearing.
What it doesn’t do
Platform properties only measure how your content performs on Google Search. Likes, follows, and views that happen inside Instagram or TikTok stay in those apps’ own analytics. This is purely the Google side of the picture, which is exactly the side you’ve been blind to.
Why this matters for local businesses
Google just put your social profiles inside its own measurement tool, right next to your website. Read that as a signal. Social content ranks in search, especially local search, and Google wants creators and businesses to see it.
I’ve watched client social profiles show up in local results alongside their websites for months. What was missing was measurement. Now every caption becomes a keyword decision you can check against real data instead of guessing.
To be clear, this does not make your website less important. Your website is still where visitors convert, where your service pages live, and where you control the experience end to end. Platform properties add a measurable layer on top of that foundation.
What we’re doing at Leedly
As the rollout reaches each account, we’re connecting platform properties for every client, capturing a 28 day baseline, and feeding the query data straight into caption and content strategy. Rankings you can’t see are rankings you can’t grow.
If you want this set up for your business, along with a readout of what your profiles already rank for, get in touch. It takes us one look to show you what you’re sitting on.