This guide explains how to add social media to Google My Business.
Below, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for how to add social media links to Google My Business using a variety of digital marketing strategies.
By following this tutorial, you’ll give Google’s algorithm the accurate information it needs to help speed up the process to add social media icons to your Google My Business Profile for customers to connect with your company on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, etc.
The way Google Business works for social media icons is by collecting data from third-party sites around the Internet to confirm which social links should be added to the Business Profile listing. This means you cannot put social media profiles directly on a GMB listing, which is why this guide is here to help you get around that restriction.
Table of Contents
How to Add Social Media to Google My Business
1. Add Your Website Link to Google My Business
The first step for how to add social media to Google My Business is to add your website URL to your Business Profile. Google needs to develop associations with your website before it can add social media links to your listing.
2. Create Social Media Profiles
The next step how to add social media links to Google My Business is to create the social accounts you want to be displayed on your GMB listing. Having more social media accounts generates more opportunities to add online data about your company to Google’s Knowledge Graph, which is where the algorithm pulls information for your Business Profile.
A good strategy is to create an account on each of these popular social media platforms for your business entity:
- Medium
- TikTok
- YouTube
3. Cross Link Each Social Media Property
As you’re creating your social media accounts, you’ll want to include links to your main website and each of the other social media profiles within the account settings section. Including hyperlinks like this enhances your digital marketing efforts by creating an interconnected network that enables Google’s algorithm to accurately add social media profiles to your Google My Business listing.
Essentially, you’re using third-party websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, to confirm the social media associations for your business through the hyperlinks. This can also help speed up the process of putting the social media icons on your Business Profile that appears in Google Maps and the Google Knowledge Panel.
4. Link from the Website to the Social Media Profiles
Another important step to link social media to Google My Business is to add hyperlinks throughout your website for each social media profile to enable Google Business to confirm the associations.
You can do this by displaying your social media links prominently in these three areas of the website:
- In the header or footer.
- On the about page.
- On the contact page.
5. Add Schema Markup On the Website
If you really want to add social media icons to Google My Business, then you need to include Schema Markup on your website for Google to crawl. This process includes adding Structured Data to your website’s HTML code using Local Schema Markup with the “sameAS” property, which provides Google with the data it requires to display rich results for your website in Google Maps, Google Search, and the Knowledge Panel.
Insert the sample code below in your website’s <head> section (replacing the accurate information for your business details), and add a “sameAS” property for each social media profile you want to be included as an icon on your Google Business Profile.
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org/",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Your Business Name",
"description": "A short description about your business.",
"url" : "https://www.yourdomain.com",
"address":
{
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "123 Street Name",
"addressLocality": "City",
"addressRegion": "State",
"postalCode": "12345",
"addressCountry": "USA"
},
"sameAs":[
"https://www.facebook.com/yourbusiness/",
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-business/",
"https://twitter.com/yourbusiness/"
]
}
</script>6. Post Links On the Social Media Sites
Posting links on your business’s social media sites can help confirm the associations for your Google My Business Profile. The strategy here is to post links to the pages on your website that contain the list of social media hyperlinks as well as links to the page on the social accounts that contain hyperlinks to the other profiles for the business.
Similar to step 3 above, you’re essentially doing everything you can to show Google’s algorithm that the connected social media accounts are related to your business entity. Therefore, the more you can interconnect them with hyperlinks, the better it is for getting your social media profiles added to your GMB listing.
7. Set Up Local Business Listings
This is a good optional step to help to complete to help speed up the process of Google including your social media links on your GMB Profile. Especially, if you’re having trouble getting the social icons to show up for the business.
By creating business listings on local business directories that Google trusts, you can send additional signals to the algorithm that your business is connected to specific social media profiles.
You can view this other page with a complete list of business listing sites or just start with these top local directories below:
- Crunchbase
- Bing Places
- HubSpot Directory
- Yelp
- MerchantCircle
- Better Business Bureau
- Hotfrog
- Local.com
The trick here is to set up a new account, then link to your website and all of your business’s social media profiles to help confirm the business entity is connected to those accounts. Keep in mind that new businesses will need more business directory confirmations than established businesses because new businesses don’t have as much verified information in the Google Knowledge Graph.
8. Wait for the Social Media Icons to Be Added
Social media profiles will appear on your Google My Business profile once Google has enough verified information available about the social media links in its Knowledge Graph. So you just have to wait on it to happen.
The social media icons can appear within a few weeks, but it might take more time for new businesses as explained in the previous step of this tutorial. You can help speed up the process by creating engaging content on your social media accounts, growing your number of followers and engagements, and ensuring the URLs for your website and other social media accounts you share are accurate.
While you’re waiting for the social media links to appear, you should work on adding keywords to Google Business Profile to help improve your listing’s search engine optimization (SEO). You can also check out this Google My Business Optimization Checklist. By following the tips on those pages, you can increase the rankings and visibility of your GMB Profile so it appears for more relevant searches on Google to gain more local customers.
Adding Social Media to Google My Business Summary
I hope you enjoyed this guide on how to add social media to Google My Business.
As you discovered, the process for how to add social media links to Google My Business
includes several steps to give Google the information it needs in its Knowledge Graph. Once that data is crawled and assessed for accuracy, the social media profiles can then be added to the Google Business Profile that appears in search, Google Maps, and the Knowledge Panel.
