Consumer trust
Instagram indexing | how Google’s update impacts product sampling
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Earlier this month, Instagram went live with a change that allows Google to now display public posts on its result page. This Instagram indexing means that brand content could now show up in search results and be seen by a higher number of potential customers. This is a huge win for marketing teams, as it now allows brands to become more visible and discoverable online. But, what does it mean for digital product sampling - and how could your brand benefit from this update?
Instagram indexing could be a game changer for digital product sampling
This update should come as no surprise; the line between social media and search has long been blurred. In a recent Forbes study, it was revealed that there has been a 25% decrease in Gen Z using Google as a search engine, with 41% of the generation now using social platforms as their primary way to search online.
Indeed, this recent update officially makes social media a search channel, just as much as a social one, opening the door for entirely new digital product sampling campaigns for brands to focus on. This significantly broadens top-of-funnel awareness and offers a free avenue for content to shine outside of Instagram!
How digital product sampling helps brands get the most out Instagram indexing
Instagram indexing - by Google and other search engines - presents an exciting opportunity for brands who want to gain more market share and visibility online. This certainly increases competition with brands who are not only competing with one another’s Instagram accounts, but also with blogs, websites and YouTube (among other channels) for top search rankings. This increased competition necessitates a strategy that prioritizes consistent, high-quality content, which in turn, will help build brand authority and trust.
This is where user-generated content becomes crucial for beauty brands and FMCG companies looking to gain a competitive edge. Digital product sampling campaigns can now benefit from keyword-rich product review posts, now that user-generated content has the potential to appear in Google search results, naturally uplifting and amplifying authentic reviews and social proof, which are highly influential - crucial even - in purchasing decisions.
Encouraging consumers who receive samples to post on Instagram using specific, relevant keywords and hashtags ensures that this user-generated content becomes discoverable by a wider audience, providing honest product opinions.
Given that consumers are overwhelmed by content and that trust in marketing is fast eroding, this new approach could reinvigorate an audience growing weary of the current marketing playbook. Digital product sampling, how-to videos, and reels are visual, value-driven posts - and now they’re also highly indexable. This provides brands with a quick win and a new avenue for market share expansion.
Indeed, there is a huge potential to increase the direct link to purchase intent now. Someone searching for reviews for specific products could land directly on an Instagram from someone who has received a digital sample from a brand, and then go on to purchase.
This also lends itself to influencer marketing campaigns, now viewed through an SEO-driven lens. Brands can now partner with influencers for sampling campaigns, guiding them to create content that’s not only engaging, but equally optimised for Google.
What’s more, brands can now measure the impact of digital product sampling campaigns on organic search. By tracking how their sampling efforts contribute to their overall organic search visibility and traffic, brand managers and marketing teams can directly attribute ROI to digital product sampling campaigns - as well as provide insights into how effective their product sampling strategy is beyond direct conversions.
Get started with your next digital product sampling campaign - speak to SoPost!
Sampling a product and encouraging UGC Instagram content can now generate both immediate and longer-term interactions, creating a powerful feedback loop. In essence, Google indexing Instagram posts allows brands to leverage the authentic and visual nature of Instagram content to improve their organic search presence, drive qualified traffic and ultimately increase the purchase decisions of target consumers in a more integrated and impactful way.