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.