For years, food and drink marketers have had a blind spot. You could see exactly how your website ranked on Google. You had no idea how a viral TikTok or a scroll stopping Reel showed up in someone’s search results. That gap has just started to close.

Google has rolled out a new property type in Search Console that lets you track how your Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube content performs directly in Google Search and Discover. It launched in July 2026 and is still rolling out gradually, so keep an eye on your property selector if you haven’t seen it appear yet.

For an industry that lives on social, this matters more than most people realise.

What does platform properties actually show you?

Once you have added and verified a platform, Search Console gives you the same reporting you would expect from a website property, built specifically for social and video content. You can see total clicks and impressions, filter by individual post or search term, and understand exactly which queries are driving people to your content.

That data used to sit in a black box. A restaurant chain could watch its TikTok views climb without ever knowing whether those views came from Google search results or the app’s own algorithm. Now you can tell the difference and prove it.

Why should food and drink brands care?

Social content has always driven discovery in this sector. A recipe Reel, a behind the scenes kitchen video, a menu item that goes viral for reasons nobody can quite explain. What has never existed until now is hard evidence connecting that social activity to search performance.

That is the real shift. Marketing teams can finally build the case for budget with actual numbers rather than a hunch. If a TikTok video is quietly driving hundreds of searches for your brand name every month, you now have proof to take into the next budget conversation.

How do you set it up?

Setting up a platform property works much like adding a website. Open the property selector in Search Console, click add property, choose your platform and follow the verification prompts. You need to do this separately for each account, whether that is Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube, and each one comes with its own dedicated reporting.

For those managing several brand accounts across multiple platforms, this adds up fast. It is worth deciding who owns each verification before you start i.e. agency / in house social team / freelance etc.

What should you do next?

Check your property selector this week. If platform properties has reached your account, add your Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube channels and start building a picture of how they perform in Google Search over the coming months. If it has not landed yet, the rollout is ongoing, so it is a case of when rather than if.

Once the data starts flowing, look for patterns. Which posts are driving search traffic? Which search terms keep appearing next to your content? That is the beginning of a genuine social to search strategy, rather than two channels working in isolation from each other.

jellybean can help you make sense of the data

Seeing the numbers is one thing. Knowing what to do with them is another. As specialist food and drink marketers, we help brands connect what happens on social with what happens in search and turn that into a strategy that justifies its own budget.

If you want a hand setting up platform properties, making sense of what the data is telling you, or creating a social strategy informed by real data get in touch with us here. We work across foodservice, retail and consumer food and drink brands, and we have been watching this space closely since the rollout began.