Google Perspectives & The Future of Influencer Marketing

Until very recently, the worlds of influencer marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) were largely distinct with very little cross-over. This all changed with the emergence of TikTok. Since then, hundreds of articles have been created about TikTok SEO to boost organic performance within the app. However, with Google’s adoption of Generative AI – and more specifically Google Perspectives, the relationship has become mutualistic. The most successful influencer marketers, and content creators will leverage this opportunity to improve reach, build relevancy, and drive sales.

What Is Generative AI?

In a nutshell, Generative AI is a model which enables Google Search to pull in various sources of data to provide a 360 response to a search query. For example if you were to Google search “Is Dubai a good holiday destination in July?”  Google could return a series of articles from travel bloggers, featured snippets from high DA websites, and images taken in July from previous years. This would allow a user to understand that whilst Dubai is a good destination in July, average highs of 41° may make it unbearable for most. This additional context is invaluable!

What is Google Perspectives?

To complement Generative AI technology, Google has also introduced ‘Perspectives’. This new tool will promote video content images and images from social media, and posts from discussion boards and forums. All of this information will be accessible from within the search results.  

Why has Google Introduced Perspectives?

Google has introduced Perspectives to make it easier for people to find alternative perspectives. This is part of a broader shift by Google to prioritise content created by people with unique expertise and experience, rather than content simply made to attract clicks. This is something that the Helpful Content System sought to address. By the end of 2023, Google is planning to roll out an update to this system that more deeply understands content created from a personal or expert point of view to improve rankings in the SERPs for users.

What does Google Perspectives mean for influencer marketers?

For influencers marketers, Google Perspectives presents a new opportunity to capitalise on the shift in search behaviour. Until now, influencer marketing has largely been seen as a discipline limited to social media. However, from this point onwards, influencer marketing will start to be seen as a key factor in any user’s journey to the checkout. For a long time, influencer marketers have understood the effectiveness of peer to peer recommendations and the power of real human interaction, and now the rest of the industry will start to take note.

How can influencer marketers use Google Perspectives?

To maximise the benefits of Google Perspectives, influencer marketers need to be able to control, guide, and shape what exactly is being said about their brand on social media. The most effective way to do this is to critically analyse your brand:

1) Does your brand have a genuinely good product or service?
2) Does your brand have a clear point of difference?
3) Does your brand charge a fair price?
4) Does your customer service actually leave customers satisfied?

The reason for this, is because it’s likely that Google may prioritise 100% organic content over content with ad disclosure e.g. gifted, ad, advertisement. This would seem like a logical step for Google to take to ensure that all of the results returned are completely authentic. Therefore if all of the organic content about your brand is negative, but all of your organic content is negative, this could be recognised by the algorithm. However if several influencers are saying this same thing through paid ad content, and there’s a bank of organic content to endorse this view, or the brand has strong equity across hundreds of other ranking signals, it is likely to appear in Perspectives.

Will TikTok SEO improve my ranking potential in Google Perspectives?

At this stage it’s impossible to say that a video which ranks highly for organic search terms on TikTok, will rank highly for similar queries on Google. However, based on everything we know about TikTok SEO, Google SEO, and the similarities between the two, it is highly likely. At Fayrli, we have been trying to ensure our clients rank for the keywords relevant for their brand, as we know that occupying a premium position in TikTok search can be invaluable. As with any form of social media, or search engine, as a market matures so too does the competition. Here’s an example for one of our education clients: 

How can content creators benefit from Google Perspectives?

For content creators, Google Perspectives is a fantastic way to reach new fans who may not consume social media content regularly. For content creators, the focus should be on creating content that is engaging, authentic and relevant. Making content engaging comes down to analysing past posts, and spending time understanding what type of content works well in any chosen vertical. Authenticity comes down to understanding who you are and what you stand for. Relevant content, on the other hand, is more of a science. For any content creator, we recommend splitting your relevant content into two buckets – timeless, and timely. 

Timeless Content

Timeless content is advice based content which will never become redundant. This type of content is typically related to a specific problem. For example content around a question like “How do I know if my crush likes me?” would always have a long-term appeal, because this is a problem that almost everyone has experienced at one point in their life.

Timely Content

On the other hand, timely content is content which may be seasonal, for example a swimwear haul in the summer. For seasonal trends there are various free tools which content creators can use such as Google Trends. But there’s nothing like good old fashioned manual research. Luckily on platforms like TikTok, the algorithm will actively show you products, services, and content which is trending in your chosen niche to make life easy.

Will Google Perspectives benefit content creators and influencers?

Google Perspectives will be transformative for content creators – particularly those with a diversified range of social media profiles. Perspectives will highlight long-form videos, images, and written posts from discussion boards, Q&A sites, and social media platforms in search results. This means that it’s probably time to find your WordPress logins and get to work!

No, but seriously, investing in creating content across all formats – word, static image, and video will be extremely important in the next 3-5 years. Although video seems likely to be the most important, it’s worth noting that videos can be viewed entirely within Search, whereas long-form content has to be clicked to be fully consumed. Therefore, whilst video may be more effective at helping your content be seen by a wider variety of people, long form content is where you are likely to see a greater volume of clicks, and therefore an increase in traffic and affiliate revenue.

TikTok SEO: 5 Ways To Make Your Videos Show Up in Search

Ranking at the top of the search results is invaluable on TikTok. In this blog post we’ll share five ways to make your video show in search, using REAL client examples to ensure that you’re able to maximise the longevity of your content, and optimise your content for Google Perspectives.

What is TikTok SEO?

TikTok SEO is a method of optimising videos to ensure you appear at the top of the search results within the app. Several factors can increase the likelihood of a video ranking well organically such as keywords and hashtags.

Will TikTok replace Google?

Almost 40% of Gen Z use TikTok on Instagram for Search instead of Google. It can be an easy way to get recommendations for where to eat, what to buy, and where to go. The answers are instantaneous and most importantly – visual. However, TikTok will not replace Google. Google is still the number one Search Engine for the world, and currently, there is still no match for Google when it comes to more complex search queries.

5 ways to do TikTok SEO

Step 1: Define your audience

The first step is to define your audience. It’s important to understand who you are trying to reach with your content. What do they look like? What are their interests? What are their pain points? The more you can understand about your audience, the better your content will be as you could tailor the structure, the format, and the narrative towards their needs or wants.

Step 2: Conduct keyword research

TikTok has a recommendation system which determines which videos should appear on the For You page. From what we see with our clients, all of these factors also contribute to the search results on the app too. In no particular order, the following are taken into account by TikTok’s algorithm:

1) User interaction e.g. likes and shares

2) Device and account settings e.g. language preferences

3) Video information e.g. hashtags and keywords

For the purposes of this article, we will solely focus on the latter – hashtags and keywords. By adopting a strategic approach to the way captions are developed you will be able to help your videos rank in search.

Keywords

Using a SEO tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs, you will be able to research search terms that are being searched for on Google to gain an understanding of the search volume. When looking for keywords choose a combination of general keywords, medium tail keywords and low tail keywords for users far along their purchase journey. Then search each keyword in TikTok’s search bar to see what type of content is ranking organically for the keyword. If we use “Running Shoes” as an example, the word “Running Shoes” is a high volume general keyword in SEMRush. When we search “Running Shoes” in the TikTok search bar, it’s clear that the algorithm prioritises videos aimed at beginners looking for their first pair of shoes. With this in mind, rather than trying to rank for “Running Shoes”, it would be better to try to rank for a medium tail variant like “Running Shoes For Beginners”.

In addition to using Google Search tools, you can also use Search Listening within TikTok to see what people are searching around for specific phrases. TikTok will automatically auto-populate the search bar with the most popular keywords related to your query. Look through what it shows you, and select any keywords that align with your brand.

Hashtags

TikTok has always provided hashtag volumes from within the app. But in 2023, TikTok also released a hashtag tool which allows brands to see the level of interest in hashtags overtime. Keywords are arguably more important than hashtags but the combination of the two adds additional context, in other words – semantic relevance. Whilst we do not recommend duplicating all of your keywords as hashtags, it can be beneficial to ensure that you use hashtags in the same cluster as your keywords. 

Step 3: Research your competitors

Search the keyword you want to rank for on TikTok:

1) Review all of the videos rank organically

2) Filter by like count – have the rankings changed?

3) Filter by view count – is there a difference?

Make notes of what is working for the most popular content. This content is directly related to the query that you want to rank for. Therefore, understanding what exactly works well and identifying why is key. More often than not, what sets the top performing videos apart is the hook in the first 3 seconds, and the relatability of the content creator which appears in the video. This leads us nicely onto Step 4…

Step 4: Identify suitable influencers

To rank organically in search you don’t need to work with influencers who have the biggest following. We’ve helped brands rank in position 1, by partnering with creators who have less than 20,000 TikTok followers. However, the influencers you select need to be suitable. Suitability can be determined by a variety of factors including their subject expertise (comparable to E-A-T), their personality, their content style, and their engagement levels. 

However, the most important thing to remember is that you should be guided by your research, not your preferences. As a brand, it’s easy to have a very strict notion of who should be representing your brand – in terms of looks, age or personality. On TikTok in particular a narrow view can be detrimental. Therefore, remaining unbiased in your assessment of an influencer is vital. 

Rather than working with one influencer and hoping to get lucky, collaborate with several influencers. Test several different captions, and hashtags until you’re able to find a combination which works. This is what we did successfully for one of our clients who rank in position 1 for the keywords “Coding Bootcamp” and “Tech Bootcamp”.

Step 5: Analyse the reception

In our experience, a video is more likely to rank if the engagement is overwhelmingly positive. Contentious videos may get higher levels of comments, but as some of these comments can be negative, critical, or down-voted, it seems like these actions devalue the content in TikTok’s ranking algorithm. Therefore it’s important to monitor the reception of each video. This is fairly easy to do when the video is entirely organic. But if you plan to turn the video into a Spark Ad, it’s worth monitoring the comments closely and removing any negative comments – especially if they are repeated constantly about the creator.

On a positive note, the comments section of a video can be an invaluable tool for gaining additional insight into new queries. On Google 15% of Searches have never been seen before. This means that getting real time insight to customer queries and concerns can add an additional layer of insight to your content strategy and provide inspiration for future videos. For example, as part of a more long term collaboration, the same influencer could “respond” to the question with an answer video.

Things to avoid when doing TikTok SEO

This article has suggested a lot of “Do’s”, but there are two things you should absolutely avoid when doing TikTok SEO. The first is duplicate content. The second is creating content that could be considered spam. The principle behind creating great content on TikTok, are no different to the principles behind creating great content on Google. Above all else, the user experience needs to come first. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that your content is valuable, entertaining or insightful. A combination of the three is the sweet spot!