During 2020, short videos on Instagram and TikTok have increased. Probably due to the home confinement to which we have been forced, the users of these platforms have massively consumed this type of entertainment. According to a Statista study by 2023, active users on Instagram will exceed 100 million per month in the United States alone. Of course, this upward trend does not look like it is going to recede but rather the opposite. And is that 100 million active users are many users. Such has been its success that Google has not wanted to miss out on this new opportunity and has decided to show microvideos in search results.
Google has evolved its search engine to such an extent that it is often not necessary to enter the pages it offers to access the information. Thanks to this integration, it would no longer be essential to search within the apps since Google would offer global results in its own search engine.
This project will change the way people will be able to view the search engine. A carousel with micro-videos for mobile devices not only from Instagram, but also from TikTok will be attached to it. At the moment this is only a beta version that was first reported by the Search Engine Roundtable. The feature stems from a test that was released earlier this year in which Google introduced a short video carousel within Discover. It is not just another copy of the stories. Last October, Google integrated this format as video content created by guest editors such as Forbes USA Today or Vice.
Short videos, the Google project
Google’s short video carousel will appear at the top of search results. Right before the rest of the text results are displayed and after the sponsored search results. When we do a search in Google we already see how results appear from YouTube and even from other social networks such as Twitter. The latter made this possible thanks to an agreement they reached in 2015. Well, in a short time and if everything goes as expected, short videos will appear ahead of them.
The deployment of this function is limited, as is usually the case with Google. At the moment it only works in the United States and under the English language. We do not know if the initial tests are being positive for the large American company. But we can bet, knowing that we are not going to lose, that it will surely spread to more languages and countries soon. And always under the same scheme: short videos related in the form of a carousel with cards that are reproduced by clicking on any of the videos.
Reasons for integrating short videos
The reasons for this update to take effect are diverse, since it will work to retain users and improve their experience in the search engine. By clicking directly on the content of interest you will directly access the website that produced it. In the same way, you can return to the initial page by simply pressing the back button.
The goal of this new test is, as always with Google, to retain users. But if we think in the longer term, the reasons for integrating microvideos in searches may be different. The purpose of Google is that its search engine is your entry point but never the exit point. What Google wants is that you stay as long as possible adding a lot of content. If we already had the tweets, YouTube videos, news, wikipedia, etc … now we will also have short videos.
These new videos are designed to retain the youngest users, they are the ones who spend the most time on the Instagram and TikTok platforms. By inserting the videos of these two mega-social networks in their search engine, a percentage of users will be content to play the video and keep searching. In other words, they will continue there submerged instead of changing applications. Clicking or tapping on these videos opens the web version of TikTok or Instagram instead of the app installed on the mobile. In this way, as we have just mentioned, many users will play the video, consume it, close the web version and remain on Google.
Although for the moment everything is up in the air, let’s imagine for a moment that the results of the tests that are being carried out are positive. What would it mean? … Well, it would be a benefit not only for Google but also for the thousands of influencers of the two large social networks. They will have a great opportunity to get users because many new fans will find them thanks to Google. We could risk a mini-SEO revolution within the two social networks.