We’re in a new era where web content visibility is fragmenting across a wide range of search and social platforms.
While still a dominant force, Google is no longer the default search experience. Video-based social media platforms like TikTok and community-based sites like Reddit are becoming popular search engines with dedicated audiences.
This trend is impacting how news content is consumed. Google’s current news SERP evolution is directly influenced by the personalization of query responses offered by LLMs and the rise in influencer authority enabled by social media platforms.
Google has responded by creating its own AI-powered SERP features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, and surfacing more content from social media platforms that provide the “helpful, reliable, people-first content” that Google’s ranking systems prioritize.
Now that search and social are more intertwined than ever, a new paradigm is needed – one in which newsroom audience teams made up of social media, SEO, and AI specialists work holistically on a daily basis toward a cohesive content visibility goal.
When optimizing news content for social platforms, publishers should also consider how those posts may perform in the Google SERP. I’ll cover optimizing for specific SERP features below, but first, you’ll want to think about making your news content social-friendly.
Optimize news content for social media platforms
First, a dose of sanity. Publishers should resist the temptation to optimize content for every social media platform.
It’s better to pick one or two social platforms – where an audience is already established and that offer the best opportunity for growth – than to create accounts on every social platform and let them languish.
Review analytics and conduct audience surveys to gain insights into which platforms your audience already consumes news content.
Here’s a breakdown by platform of which content types work best and how content from each platform can appear on Google.
YouTube
If you’re producing YouTube video content, make sure to follow video SEO best practices. This comprehensive YouTube SEO guide will help you develop a successful video strategy and ensure video titles align with your content.
Per Google, YouTube’s search ranking system prioritizes three elements:
- Relevance: Metadata needs to accurately represent video content to be surfaced as relevant for a search query.
- Engagement: Includes factors such as a video’s watch time for a specific user query.
- Quality: Video content should show topic expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
One trend I’ve noticed in YouTube videos on the Google SERP is that older event content can continue to drive visibility rankings long after the event has ended and well after the related article has faded in search rankings.
Explainer videos also demonstrate longevity on the Google SERP. In this government shutdown explainer video, Yahoo Finance includes the expert’s credentials in the description box, further emphasizing the topic expertise element that YouTube’s ranking system prioritizes.
YouTube can also help your visibility in AI Overviews. Nearly 30% of Google AI Overviews cite YouTube, according to BrightEdge. YouTube was cited most often for tutorials, reviews, and shopping-related queries.
Dig deeper: YouTube is no longer optional for SEO in the age of AI Overviews
While Facebook may not be the cool kid on the block anymore, the social platform has served a diverse set of users over its long history, from its initial audience of college kids to now attracting an older, majority female audience, per Pew Research Center data.
Community-based content and entertainment news that sparks conversation is key to engagement success on Facebook.
While Meta removed the dedicated news tab on Facebook in 2023-2024, leading to cratering Facebook referrals for news publishers, it’s worth noting that Facebook posts have been rising in Google SERP visibility over the last year, so it may be time to reconsider the platform from a search perspective.
In my review of Google search visibility, Facebook posts about holidays and the full moon appear consistently, and the short-form video format is popular.
The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need.
X
Since Elon Musk took over the platform in 2022, the audience has shifted to the political right. While the left’s exodus made headlines, usage of X for news is stable or increasing, especially in the U.S., according to the 2025 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute.
Breaking news, live updates, and political news dominate X feeds and Google visibility, but don’t overlook sports content, where X posts perform well on both the Google SERPs and Discover.
This platform emphasizes stylish, visually driven stories and topics, such as red-carpet fashion at award shows. Health topics, especially nutrition and self-care, are also popular.
Sports posts from Instagram, especially game highlights, often surface on the Google SERP as part of a dedicated publisher carousel or in “What people are saying.”
A unique aspect of Reddit is that its user base is often not on other social platforms. For news publishers, this can mean a golden opportunity for niche community engagement, but also requires a dedicated strategy that may not translate well to other platforms.
A wide range of news content can perform well on Reddit, from trending topics to health explainers to live sports coverage, but having a deep understanding of the platform’s audience is critical, as is following the Reddit rules of conduct.
Publishers should spend time studying the types of news articles and conversations that drive strong engagement on subreddits before posting anything. Per Reddit, the platform’s largest audiences gravitate toward the following topics:
- Technology.
- Health.
- Direct to consumer (DTC).
- Gaming.
- Parenting.
The community discussion forum content from Reddit makes it a natural to appear in the Google SERP as part of the “What people are saying” carousel. The Reddit posts I see most often surfaced by Google are related to sports, entertainment, and business.
Dig deeper: A smarter Reddit strategy for organic and AI search visibility
TikTok
The TikTok user base leans female and has a greater share of people of color. Approximately half of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. self-report going on TikTok at least once daily, per Pew Research data.
Visual, conversational, and opinion-based content for younger audiences performs best on TikTok. Niche community content also works well; think fashion, #BookTok, etc.
Remember that short-form video requires a dedicated strategy to maximize engagement and reach, and it’s important to keep in mind that TikTok audiences value authenticity over the polish of a professional newsroom production.
Entertainment and shopping content (sales, product reviews) are the categories in which TikTok demonstrates the most Google visibility.
While Pinterest may feel like an old-school social platform, Gen Z is its fastest-growing audience. That being said, Pinterest attracts users from across a wide range of age groups. According to Pinterest’s global data, its audience is 70% women and 30% men.
Don’t overlook the power of Pinterest for lifestyle content niches. Trends around fashion, home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes, and celebrity content are top performers on this visual social platform.
News publishers interested in this platform should have robust lifestyle content that is actionable and delivered with a motivational tone.
How-to and before/after formats are popular. Excellent quality visuals in a vertical format with a 2:3 aspect ratio and text overlays are recommended. Pinterest supports a more relaxed posting schedule compared to other social platforms. Weekly posting is ideal, since much of the content on Pinterest is evergreen.
Similar to Google Trends, Pinterest Trends can help news publishers stay on top of trending topics on the platform.
Social content opportunities by Google SERP feature
If you’re looking to appear in a particular SERP feature, it’s helpful to know how social platform content appears in each type.
Top Stories (or News Box)
The crown jewel of the Google SERP for news publishers, this feature is dedicated to breaking news and developing news stories as well as capturing updates for the big news stories and trends of the moment.
Thumbnail selection is critical for Top Stories. Publishers should pay close attention to the News Box descriptive labels to ensure content is optimized to match the specific intent or angle Google is seeking.
While historically a SERP feature that showcased traditional news publishers, Google is now including relevant social media content in the mix. The Instagram post in Top Stories below is an Instagram Reel from the Detroit Free Press.
Live update articles are often featured in the News Box and are a great format to embed social media posts.
It helps break up walls of texts and serves as a showcase for a news publisher’s live, original reporting from the scene, eyewitness accounts, and related social content that demonstrates a publisher’s subject expertise.
What people are saying
This Google SERP feature is ideal for capturing audience reaction and user-generated content from a variety of social platforms. Short-form video is often featured in this space.
It’s a showcase for any story or topic that drives emotional engagement, including reactions to everything from a celebrity death to a sporting event outcome to a viral trend. Severe weather is also a recurring topic.
Knowledge Panel
There’s a growing interest in this Google SERP feature among news publishers, especially those publishers who produce entertainment content.
Depending on the configuration, publishers have the opportunity to earn a ranking for an image, social post, or article, such as a celebrity biography.
While content opportunities are limited in the Knowledge Panel, they offer more exclusivity, which can increase CTR. YouTube and Instagram are commonly cited here, but X and TikTok have also been growing in visibility.
Google Discover
This social-search hybrid product, which features trending, emotionally engaging content based on a user’s web and app activity, requires a separate optimization strategy.
The keys to Discover visibility are identifying topics that spark curiosity and ensuring articles are formatted for frictionless consumption.
Discover has been considered a “black box” when it comes to content optimization, but there are several basic elements to implement that can increase visibility.
Viral hits may spike a news publisher’s Discover performance temporarily, but as Harry Clarkson-Bennett outlines, publishers need to analyze their Discover performance over time at the entity level to build a smart optimization strategy.
Google’s official Discover optimization tips discourage clickbait practices that actually work quite well on the platform, such as salacious quotes in headlines and content about controversial topics and strong opinion perspectives.
I would never recommend a publisher produce clickbait, but for tabloid publishers, content with a strong, contentious perspective overperforms on Discover, regardless of the official Google guidance.
Headlines and images require serious consideration. While Google is running an experiment in which their AI tool rewrites headlines for Discover, direct, action-oriented, and emotion-driven headlines traditionally perform best. There’s no specific character count recommendation, but at a certain point (typically 100+ characters), the headline will get truncated and an ellipsis will be used.
Images must be formatted to Discover specifications (at least 1,200 pixels wide) and should be eye-catching to make people stop and click. Keep articles short or include a summary box at the top of longer articles. Format articles for scanability.
This Forbes X post featured on my Discover feed nails the elements essential for inclusion.
Politics, sports, and entertainment topics that favor an opinion-driven perspective can drive strong engagement on Discover. For YMYL (Your Money Your Life) content, which can also perform well on Discover, focus on accuracy, expert sources, and lean into the curiosity gap.
YouTube and X are the dominant social platforms featured on Discover, according to a Marfeel study.
This was further confirmed by Clara Soteras, who shared insights from Andy Almeida of Google’s Trust and Safety team as presented at Google Search Central Live in Zurich in December 2025.
Almeida noted that Discover’s algorithm has been updated to “include content from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or X published by content creators.”
Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform.
Threat or opportunity?
Instead of feeling dismayed by the increased competition from social media platform content appearing on Google’s SERPs and Discover, news publishers should welcome the additional opportunities for their content to be seen.
In a social and AI-powered search landscape, brand visibility is the key metric. Whether that visibility comes from a news publisher article, video, or social post, it still counts toward brand engagement.
While search strategies have long focused on algorithms, optimizing content for a social-forward SERP requires a different focus. The merging of social and search will spark a holistic audience team revolution in newsrooms, reduce redundant practices, and inspire a content strategy powered by people over algorithms.
