How to Know What to Post on Social Media
Google has been tracking how your YouTube videos, Instagram posts and TikToks perform in search, and Search Console now shows you that data for free. Here's how to connect it and what to change once you can see it.
The short answer
Stop guessing what to post by connecting your social accounts to Google Search Console as platform properties. Search Console now supports YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X alongside websites, and shows impressions, clicks, click through rate and average position for that content in Google Search. That's a different question from the one your platform analytics answer, and the gap between the two is where your next post is hiding.
At a glance
- Time
- ≈ 15 minutes to connect
- Cost
- Free
- You need
- A Google account and one social account
- Where
- Google Search Console
Here's how most content decisions get made. A feeling, or whatever did all right last time.
Nobody's being careless. That's what happens when the information you need doesn't exist anywhere you can look.
YouTube Analytics tells you what happened on YouTube. Instagram Insights tells you what happened on Instagram. Neither one tells you what happened when somebody searched Google and your content came up.
That layer has been invisible the whole time. Google has been finding, categorising and showing content that doesn't live on your website, and you've had no window into any of it.
Now you do, and it's free. Watch the video above and you'll see it running on a real account.
Key takeaways
- 01
Google Search Console now supports platform properties for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X. Open the property selector, click Add Property, and the platform options sit alongside the usual website ones.
- 02
Platform analytics and Search Console answer two different questions. YouTube tells you how a video performed on YouTube. Search Console tells you how that same video performed when it appeared on Google.
- 03
Four numbers come back: impressions, clicks, click through rate and average position. Same metrics Search Console has always given websites, now pointed at content that lives somewhere else.
- 04
High impressions with almost no clicks is a title and thumbnail problem, not a topic problem. Google understands what the content is about and is showing it. People are choosing something else.
- 05
Feeding AI your own data beats asking it for content ideas. Without your numbers it gives you general patterns. With them, it can tell you which subjects Google actually associates with you.
For over 20 years Search Console only ever showed you how Google saw your website. That was the whole window.
What I'd do with the new one is compare three things, in this order.
First, what the platform itself tells you. On YouTube that's views, retention, watch time, how people found it inside YouTube.
Second, what Search Console says about that same content on Google. How many times Google showed it, what people searched to make it appear, whether anybody clicked, what position it held.
Third, the pattern across your website and your other platforms together. That's the one nobody has been able to look at before, and it's where the opportunities are.
None of the three gives you the answer on its own. Together they give you a much clearer picture than any of them separately, and they turn "I think this topic works" into something you can check.
Google is explicit about the limit, and it matters: "Platform properties only show how your content performs on Google Search. They don't track when people see your content on the platform itself."
So this doesn't replace your analytics. It adds the half you never had.
There's a bigger thing sitting underneath it, though. The fact that Google can build a separate property for your YouTube channel or your Instagram account is Google telling you something: your website is no longer the only place your work gets discovered through search.
Your site is one part of your presence. Your channel is another. Your posts are another. Google has been treating them that way for a while. This is the first time you get to see it.
And as search gets more AI driven, that matters more, not less. AI search systems need sources. They need to know which content relates to which subject and where it originally came from. The more consistently you publish about the thing you want to be known for, the more context there is to find, in more places than one.
Prefer to watch
9:47Connecting a platform property and reading it
Open Search Console and add a property
Go to Google Search Console and open the property selector dropdown, the one at the top left that usually lists your website.
Click Add Property. What's new is that the list no longer stops at websites.
Pick your platform and verify
Choose YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or X, then follow the on screen steps to authorise the connection.
You're signing in to that account to prove it's yours. Nothing changes on the account itself.
Read the four numbers, and know what they leave out
Impressions is how many times Google showed your content. Clicks is how many people chose it. Click through rate is the ratio. Average position is where it sat.
What isn't in there is anything that happened on the platform. That's still the platform's job.
Put it beside what the platform already told you
Open YouTube Analytics, or Instagram Insights, next to it.
You're not looking for agreement. You're looking for the two places where they disagree, because that's the only part that tells you to do something differently.
Find the mismatch worth acting on
Two mismatches matter.
Lots of impressions, almost no clicks: Google gets the topic and is showing you, but your title, thumbnail or the way the result reads isn't convincing anybody. Fix the packaging, not the subject.
Quiet on the platform, steady from Google months later: that piece is serving a search you never knew existed. Make more of it.
There's a third worth watching for once you have a few months of data. One question that keeps bringing people to several different pieces of your content, across platforms. That's not a post idea, that's a subject you should own.
Hand AI the real data instead of asking it to guess
Most people ask AI for ten video ideas and get general patterns, because general patterns are all it has.
Export your Search Console data, from the website and the platform properties both, and give it that instead. Then ask real questions: what topics does Google appear to associate with me, where am I getting impressions but no clicks, which social posts should become full videos, which videos should become articles.
Keep the decision
AI is good at working through a bigger pile of information than you can hold in your head, and at spotting patterns you'd miss.
It's not good at knowing what you want to be known for. That part stays yours, and one of the questions worth asking is whether you're being discovered for the subjects you actually chose.
What the numbers tell you to do
The video that everyone sees and nobody clicks
YouTube Analytics says the people who find it watch a good chunk of it, so the content is working.
Search Console says Google showed it thousands of times and almost nobody clicked. Same video, two verdicts, and only one of them tells you what to change.
The video YouTube forgot
Barely any traffic from YouTube itself, but it keeps appearing in Google searches and keeps bringing people in months after publishing.
That video is answering a question you wouldn't have recognised from YouTube's numbers. A follow up, an article, or a short post about one part of it are all reasonable next moves.
An Instagram story in search results
Google has shown examples of Instagram Stories appearing in Search. When one shows up, that's an impression. When somebody taps it, that's a click.
Same four numbers, applied to something you probably assumed disappeared after 24 hours.
The questions worth asking once AI has your data
Which searches lead people to my website, and which lead them to my videos. Are there subjects that perform across more than one platform. Which pieces get impressions but no engagement once someone arrives.
Those are better questions than asking AI to guess what you should make next.
Being known for the wrong thing
One of the more uncomfortable questions you can ask it: am I being discovered for the subjects I actually want to be known for?
Finding out the answer is no is useful. It's also the kind of thing you can only see once you're looking at every platform in one place.
Sources
Questions people actually ask
How do I know what to post on social media?+
Look at what people are already finding you for. Connect your accounts to Search Console, see which of your existing posts and videos show up in Google searches, and make more of whatever is already being found.
Is Google Search Console free?+
Yes, completely, and it always has been. You need a Google account and the ability to sign in to the social account you're connecting.
Which platforms can I connect?+
YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X. Websites work the way they always have, and the platform options sit in the same Add Property list.
Does connecting my account improve my rankings?+
No. Connecting a property gives you a report. It doesn't change how your content ranks, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Does this replace YouTube Analytics or Instagram Insights?+
No, and don't try to make it. Those tell you what happened on the platform. Search Console tells you what happened on Google. You want both open at once.
What does average position actually mean here?+
Roughly where your content sat in the results when Google showed it. On its own it's not very useful. Beside impressions and clicks it tells you whether you're being seen and ignored, or not being seen at all.
How long before I see data?+
Give it a few days after connecting. Search Console reports on a delay, and the platform properties rolled out gradually rather than all at once.
Can I just ask AI what to post instead?+
You can, and the answer will be generic, because you've given it nothing about you. Give it your Search Console export first and the same question produces something worth acting on.
About the author
Hey, I'm Traci
Digital Marketing Strategist
With over 25 years in this industry I help small business owners and creators turn their online presence into profit.
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