How to add social media profiles to my google business profile?
In this article I’m going to share with you how you can add social media profiles to your Google Business Profile. Though those profile icons cannot be added directly, you can increase the chances for them to display on the GBP. Check out the 6 methods I’ve found to make them appear.
1. Match Your Business Name
The first thing you want to do when trying to add social profiles to the Google Business Profile is to match your business name. Be consistent. Make sure to use the same name on your social profiles and your Google profile.Â
2. Verify your Social media profiles
Google places a lot of importance on authenticity. Meaning, you want to verify your social profile through the social site’s verification process. On many sites that’s a blue checkmark. Google usually uses data from a variety of sources to verify your business information online. Not only the verification plays a role but also publicly accessible information, data from third-party platforms and user-generated content.Â
3. Add your website URL to the Google Business Profile
By adding your website URL to the Google Business Profile you’re signaling Google that this website is associated with the GBP. This is the first step you need to take in order to make a connection between your Google profile and the internet in general. To learn how to find the Google Business Profile URL, you can follow the instructions outlined here.
4. Add your social media profiles to the website
In order to make this connection work, you want to add your social media profiles to the footer of your website and to your contact us page. This will eventually tell Google that those profiles belong to your website. Which is a manadatory step to connect the social profiles with your Google Business Profile.
5. Get followers on social media
We’ve analyzed 500 Google Business Profiles and all they had in common was a certain number of followers that varied from network to network. Twitter was the network with the least number of followers while Facebook was the one with the most. Just try to get some followers on those platforms.
6. Get engagement and share your website URL
Try to get some engagement on your posts and link content from your website. Most local businesses can benefit from social media anyway, so having a consistent content plan in place can help not only with getting social media icons to the Google Business Profile but also increases the chance to get leads.Â
7. Add Social Profiles via Schema Markup
Schema Markup is website code that enables you to explain to Google what types of content you share on your website. Let’s say you want Google to know that your homepage is about your business location. In that case you can add local business Schema Markup to the website code.Â
Here is an example of how that looks like including the markup code for the social media profiles:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "ABC Plumbing",
"image": "placeholderURL.com/ABC-plumbing.jpg",
"@id": "placeholderURL.com/ABC-plumbing.jpg",
"url": "placeholderURL.com",
"telephone": "3334445555",
"priceRange": "$$",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "Placeholder Street 34",
"addressLocality": "Placeholder City",
"addressRegion": "AL",
"postalCode": "10001",
"addressCountry": "US"
},
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": 32.3182314,
"longitude": -86.902298
} ,
"sameAs": [
"facebook.com/abcplumbing",
"Twitter.com/ABCPlumbing",
"Instagram.com/ABCPlumbing",
"Youtube.com/@ABCPlumbing",
"Linkedin.com/in/ABCPlumbing"
]
}
</script>
If you want to create the Schema Markup yourself you can use a Schema Markup generator.
8. Add Social Profiles To Additional Sites
In order to increase the chance for the social icons to show up on your Google Business Profile, you can also add them to other social media sites and directories. When you created a Facebook profile, add Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and co to the Facebook profile as well. The same goes for other directories like Bing, Yelp, and AppleMaps. Google will then understand that the social profiles you’ve added to those sites are yours and will eventually display them on your Google Profile.
How to add individual social accounts to Google Business Profile
In the following section I will show you what you can do to add each individual social media profile to the Google Business page.Â
How to add Instagram Account to Google Business Profile
In order for you to increase the chances to add Instagram to the Google Business Profile you will need to get your profile verified.
Again, the verification is not necessarily a requirement to display the Instagram icon on your profile. It can merely help to add it.Â
All you need to do is go through the verification process on Instagram.
Note: Meta’s new creator verification program has launched in 2023. It enables creators to get the verified badge when they pay for a subscription.
How to add LinkedIn Account to Google Business Profile
If you want to add the LinkedIn icon to the Google Business Profile you’ll need to match the name on both, your LinkedIn profile and the Google Business Profile.
Then if you want to increase your chances further you can sign up for LinkedIn Premium.
It’s quite expensive with $99/month. If you’re not using LinkedIn professionally it’s probably not worth the effort.Â
LinkedIn Premium will let you display the little gold LinkedIn icon on the right of your profile.Â
Thoughts
Remember, these tips can only help increase the chance to add your social media profiles to the Google Business Profile.
It is not guaranteed that they will actually appear. However, you want your Google Business Profile to convert.
If people have options to click, they might leave your profile, end up on Facebook, and get caught up in the depths of social media.
If those profiles increase trust, fine. But don’t spend too much time worrying about it.Â
Also, not all of the mentioned tactics need to be done in order to get social profiles on the GBP. It might be enough to only have name consistency. Other profiles might need more than that.Â
If you liked the post, please leave a comment below and share the article with your colleagues.Â
I read that the GBP recently changed the API to allow adding social media directly to GBP. Is that true? That would be a big help.
Hi Scott! I don’t think so. Google itself provides only some information about their process: Verify your account on social and use the same name on every profile that you use on your Google Business Profile. Here is more: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7249596?hl=en