Key Takeaways

• Instagram posts from verified organizations are now indexable on Google and Bing search results, marking a significant shift in how social content intersects with traditional search.
• Google and Instagram are changing their policies and behavior to combat competition from newer platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity and TikTok by diversifying search results with social media content.
• Brands must now maintain consistent messaging across all channels since Instagram, Google and other platforms are increasingly interconnected, making integrated content strategy more critical than ever.

The Announcement

Starting July 10th, Instagram is allowing publicly available posts from verified organizations to be indexable on search results within Google and Bing. Prior to this change, Instagram’s public posts did not show up within Google Search results. This shift is partially driven by new indexing abilities within Instagram, but it also reflects a necessary response by both Google and Instagram to a brand new world.

Google’s Response to Competition

For months now, we’ve seen Google try to combat losing mind share to AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity by continuing to diversify what shows up in their search results. They’ve:

• Announced a big deal with Reddit.
• Served more and more short videos in the form of YouTube Shorts.
• Most recently, used Instagram as another pool of knowledge for their draw from within the traditional search offerings.

The same changes are also true for Bing Search, just on a smaller scale due to the market share that Bing holds.

Instagram’s Counter Against TikTok

This is another interesting way for Instagram to combat losing mind share/market share to platforms like TikTok. The growth of TikTok over the last few years has become an external threat to Instagram (and Meta). Instagram vastly changed their product to incorporate more vertical video and “scrolling” behavior as a way to counter TikTok. Now, they are introducing these new search capabilities in order to fight back.

What This Means for Your Brand Strategy

The New Reality of Content Discovery

What does it mean for you and your brand? These changes require thinking about social engagement and search engines when creating content for Instagram. We have to consider that Instagram posts can now get discovered on Google, completely separate from any social platform. Additionally, those social posts can get searched for and found from other platforms, like ChatGPT, that look for answers across the entire ecosystem.

The Importance of Consistent Brand Voice

Now that Instagram is used in traditional search engine optimization and Google is pulling in short-form video from multiple social platforms, there is no such thing as a website-only strategy for traditional Google search. It’s more important than ever to have a consistent brand voice across all of these channels because these channels are talking to each other more than ever and users are jumping from channel to channel more than ever.

Modify your tone and style for each channel’s audience, but make sure that it’s still your brand voice because you never know where that content might be picked up and shared on another platform.

Moving Forward

Content and channel strategy is complex and changing all the time, but when done right, it can be an effective strategy to draw in new audiences.  Send us a message below if you’d like to learn more about creating an effective search strategy.