Social Profiles & Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) allows you to connect your social pages to the platform and check how your social content is performing in search results! This is quite a big and impressive update - but what exactly does it entail? And what could this mean for marketers? I've read several articles regarding this topic and decided to synthesise the points below to make it a little bit more 'digestable'. Sources provided at the end.

What is it?

Google has added a Google Search Console Property Type that allows creators and publishers to see how their social media posts perform on search and discover.
Please note that this ONLY covers Google Search and Discover insights, NOT platform insights based on what I've read
You will be able to use this feature even if you or your client doesn't have a website.
It supports the following four platforms; Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube.

Why is it important?

Initially, when your social content was surfaced on Google or Discover, you couldn't see how well it was doing.
Brands have mainly focused on platform native analytics - which didn't show or breakdown Google performance at all.
Since Google has introduced Social into search, it suggests that social is now searchable, rankable and indexable. They also compete alongside webpages.
Therefore this moves suggests that Google is now bridging the gap between search and social. Instead of treating it as two distinct things, with their own teams, content and strategies, search should be equally considered when creating content.

Reports

There are three distinct reports:

Performance: Displays total clicks, impressions and other related metrics. It allows you to sort this data by posts and queries. You're allowed to export data
Insights: Provides overview of traffic patterns, successful posts and ways users find your accounts and social posts on Google
Achievement: Monitor progress towards milestones such as surpassing new goals set within the account

Distinctions/Caveats

This is different from 'On-Platform Insights'
As mentioned, it is different from on platform insights (meaning insights found natively in platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook). GSC Social insights only cover Google Search and Discover - they are meant to be used as a complimentary tool for the on-platform analytics.
Caveat: Within GSC own documentation they state that this feature will become available 'gradually'. I do not yet see it in my account.

So, what does this mean?

For Brands:

Social presence is important and possibly even non-negotiable depending on your target audience. When people search for the brand, social posts will appear on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). There will be users who click on these posts.
Also, considering Google are treating social as something that needs to be reported on, suggests how symbiotic it is becoming in the search space

For Marketers:

Social and Search shouldn't be treated as two separate things anymore - they're complementary.
Now you're able to understand how your social content is performing in the SERP, you can personalise your social strategy based on this data. For example, let's say you have several posts that have reached a lot of people. You check GSC and see that one particular post did really well amongst the search cohort. You know that this type of post should continue to stay within your content planner as it reaches beyond just social audiences.
You can also personalise your website content strategy based on your social content results. If there was a particular post that generated a lot of clicks and impressions on the SERP, it suggests that there could be interest in this area. You could release an article on the website related to that very same topic.
You can also personalise your PPC and SEO strategy based on your top performing social content results. If there are certain posts that do well around a certain topic, targeting keywords around said post could yield positive results.

What will be really interesting to see and note going forwards, is how search audiences differ to social audiences behaviour wise. When they click on the social content, do they interact? Or do they just view and leave. How are we able to determine their level of interest based on the actions they take once they click through to the social content?