What Small Business's Need To Know About Google's New Short Video Tab
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You're a small business owner. Your captions, your hashtags, your tagged location is the questionnaire that you're filling out in order to tell Google, the matchmaker, what type of content, right? That you'd be, who you'd be best suited for.

Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast where we celebrate the SOB that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business. We don't mean SOB. Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you,

If we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything. Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk

what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work. And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real. Hey everybody and welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast. SOB as in small owned business. We would never call you guys names. Before we get started, really quick, please, pretty, pretty, pretty,

pretty please leave us a review five stars or it doesn't count and make sure that you are subscribed or following depending on whatever platform you're using also if you have a topic you want Vivian and I to talk about please let us know you can email us at help at the season marketer calm you could also send us a DM on social media or

or you could leave a comment if you're on YouTube or Spotify. Whatever works best for you, just let us know if you have a topic you want to hear about.

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought this up because Charles actually on my to-do list is I am going to incorporate a form on our sobmarketing.com website because we want you guys to have an avenue to submit marketing questions pretty regularly. And so we'll get that situated up and running and we'll let you guys know when we do. So that way you can go in there and ping us. Just send us.

send us your questions or any other information, topic, suggestions you want us to cover. Yes, absolutely. Before we get started, also, Vivian, I love the hat. I'm trying to be like the bros out here. Like bra. Like the bras.

We got these trucker hats that say SOB, small owned business on there. So just a friendly reminder, we do have, what do you call it? Not apparel, but like merch. Yes. Yes.

So just like any other good podcast out there, we have merch available. We have three different designs you guys can choose from. We have women's, men's T-shirts, hats. If you like totes, we have tote bags, all of that good stuff. So you could definitely go in there and pick you out something or even get a mug.

One of my friends actually bought a shirt. She loves it, but she specifically wants everyone to know the green that she got. She says it's a beautiful shade. She was so excited when she got it in. So if

If you're into green. There you go. Well, I did try to make sure that we have different options for, because I know sometimes people don't want like just regular white plain t-shirts. Yeah. I don't like getting white shirts. Yeah. So like some of them for you ladies, there's like a mauve color that you can choose from. We have like some pinks and stuff. You can also order stickers. If you guys just want a vinyl sticker to slap on your laptop, do it. It's a great way for you to show that you have

pride in owning your small business. And it's a cheeky little SOB. You know, people are going to think you're a little son of a business owner. Okay. Well, Vivian, let's go ahead and get started after our many pitches. Friendly reminder, at the end of every podcast episode, we have a TLDL section. Too long, didn't listen. We know you're a small business owner that's on the run. If you're just checking in, you want to get a brief overview

you know, synopsis in less than 90 seconds. Chelsea does that at the very end. Go ahead and skip to that chapter. But then we're going to encourage you to come back here and listen to the entire conversation because we don't want you to miss out on anything. Exactly. Okay. Now...

I feel like this is the third time I've set this up. Now, Vivian, what are we talking about today? So Google recently did something. It was a little sneaky under the radar, but it's a much bigger deal than I think most people think it is just because it opens up a ton of opportunities for small business owners. Also, come on, Google, you think you're going to slide something past

us like this is my job okay not the sobs over here we know what's up but they have now incorporated a new tab in google search results page which is the short video tab and

now you guys this is a big big big deal if you have not noticed this because it could fly under the radar it's not like a huge design change or anything what we're talking about is let's say you open up google and you go in there to search jean jacket sure now at the very top there's going to be a new tab that says short videos if you click on it it's

It's going to pull up all kinds of information, and that's what we're going to get into today. But so if you're a little confused on... You just said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of sounded like you'd be missing a button. Okay, I know what that is. I've never watched it, though. Okay, well. I watched Daria growing up. Next time you come over for a sleepover, we're going to have to do that. You guys, Chelsea, because she's all of 27, had never watched Unsolved Mysteries.

Like, where have you been? Okay. So when she came over last year, we had a little sleepover and I forced her to watch Unsolved Mysteries, like the old school ones, not this new rendition, not this revised version. This was the old school first season. And she thought not too much of it. She thought the storytelling was a little bad. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, I don't even remember it.

I don't remember watching it. You don't remember something about a house burning down? No, I listened to true crime stuff. So that's like every other episode. All right. So never watch Beavis and Butthead. Next time you spend the night, we'll do Beavis and Butthead. What I was going to say is if you're a little confused as to what we mean by Tabs,

When you Google search something, you know, there's like web results, there's images, there's maps that that's it's now another one of those options. And it's another tab. This can be found at the very top of the page. Yes, exactly. I also want to before we start, like keep going into this conversation. I have a really interesting statistic that I want to share.

So according to Wise Owl's 2024 report on video marketing, 91% of businesses use video marketing. 91%, Vivian. Like that's huge. So if you're not using video, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to start doing it. So think paid ads, social media, all of that good stuff.

You're going to have to incorporate video. If you're listening to this podcast, we know you're a smart business owner. And I don't know if I was a betting woman. I would bet that you guys are already on this video thing because you see it all over the place and you see just how effective it is in being able to build relationships with people and also just kind of give them.

sneak peek of like your products and services and welcome them into your community and your, you know, your ecosystem, as we say around here. But so Chelsea, great. 91% of businesses are now using video marketing. Yes. One of the things that I think this does very well is I can tell you, if you're a small business owner out there that feels like you are just, you're pumping out

Like a lot of content. Yes. Okay. You're, you're doing reels. You're doing Tik TOK videos. You're, you know, on Facebook showing up and you're like, when is it going to pay off? Huh?

Now, now, now it's going to pay off because this shorts video tab is pulling from where, Chelsea? Where is it getting its videos? It's pulling from Instagram. It's pulling from TikTok, Facebook, YouTube shorts. And all of the content it's pulling is going to relate back to the search query.

Yeah. So let's reiterate that and just drive this home. When you post a reel now, if I am a lady who's selling these jean jackets, I have a boutique. Whenever I go to post a reel, whatever that looks like, whether it be comedic, whether it be, you know, based on the product, whatever, if in the search results or in the search query, if someone's look, if someone's Googling,

jean jacket, then your video has the opportunity to show up on Google. My Instagram reel from Instagram. It pulls it from that platform and it will show it in that tab. Yes. And so I think, you know, you guys, this should sweeten the pot as far as if you are not, if you are in that 9% of small business owners, that's like meh.

I don't want to do video marketing. It's just too cumbersome. There is no payoff. This should sweeten that pot a little bit just to kind of get you thinking, well, maybe there's an added bonus now, too. And that means that my short form videos that I'm posting on these other platforms will also appear in those Google search results. In the Google search results. Yeah. Can I, Vivian, real quick, can we talk about why Google did this? Yeah. Yeah.

So because I think that's also important. We've talked about this before on this podcast, but younger generations, so think Gen Z, Gen Alpha, they're not necessarily using Google that much anymore. When they're searching for something, they're using social media. So they're going on to Instagram or TikTok and typing in the...

in the search bar yeah and they're typing in the search bar uh how to style a jean jacket right like they're they're not going to google anymore and in my personal opinion this is google trying to stay up to date and give younger generations that type of content

Interesting. I love that you brought this up because I had not thought about it that way. This is what I had thought about. And it's interesting because nowadays, you guys, you could probably get data to support

I want to say anything that you want. Yeah, sure. Okay. If you look hard enough. But one of the notes that I had was that, interestingly enough, everything that I read for the past couple years, the reason Google is so important and appealing to small business owners is because they...

the intention that people have when they show up to Google is different. Okay, so instead of like being on Facebook where, sure, you can run a Facebook ad for a jean jacket, the person may be just scrolling with no intent to buy. Okay, they're just scrolling. They're spending a Saturday on the couch doing whatever. There is no intention of like, hey, let me look for something to purchase. However, they say that

for someone who goes to Google, they are very specifically, obviously looking for something, that thing they're putting in that search query with the intent to buy. Okay. So it's almost like they're showing up with an open wallet and they're saying, I have every intention of

you know buying that jean jacket if i find the one i like right yeah so that's where for me when i was looking through all of this and thinking about google's reason for taking this on and adding this short videos tab i was like oh it makes sense because the people that are ready to purchase

are the people that if they see this Instagram Reel in their search results would actually take action and buy. But what you're saying is this is actually Google's way to capture that younger target audience where they don't really have an established relationship right now. Because everyone's using TikTok or Instagram to go buy instead. Exactly. Like people...

I feel like are going on to social media with the intent to buy as well at this point. Yeah. So Google's just trying, in my opinion, Google is trying to give them the content that they're looking for, which is that video format content. And notice you guys how this changes and morphs over time because what's interesting here is it's never a quick, um,

are never quick to jerk their habits one way or the other, right? So like Chelsea's saying, okay, the younger generation now, because they've grown up with Instagram and TikTok, they're so used to purchasing everything on TikTok and Instagram and all these places, whereas someone like me in my 40s, I

I don't necessarily want to give TikTok my credit card number. I think I bought something from there one time. And even then I was like, Oh, I don't know that I want to be doing this. But it's because I was raised in a different, you know, environment with the internet. Right. So, yeah.

Over time, that shift is moving more towards what Chelsea is saying, where, and I have seen in some of these articles where people are saying Google and TikTok are kind of neck and neck. And then some of them are starting to say that more people are buying on TikTok than they are on Google.

And so I think over the next couple of years, we'll probably see that shift completely morph over. And maybe Google will become less and less important in that buying journey. But as of right now in 2025, it's still...

Yeah. Ranking tops. Oh, yeah. Y'all, please don't take this conversation as a, oh, Google's not that important anymore. It is still very relevant, still very important. You still need a website. Yeah. If you're a small business, all of that is still true. And if this new addition, this new feature that they've added, this new tab is any indicator, it is proof to us that they are watching. Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm.

the consumer's change. But before we move the conversation past this, I do want to make one other note as far as Google's attempt to incorporate this feature. And that was that this wasn't something that they did overnight. Okay. They were testing and trying it out. So back in 2024, they actually had launched this feature, but it was only available in the

mobile search version of Google. Okay. And so once they saw that it would work well, and that people, I guess, were engaging with their liked it. Yeah, yeah. Then they launched it and released it now in the desktop version of Google as well. And so I think that's interesting, because it just tells you again, what Google's intention is and how they are putting in the

effort to make sure that they're staying up to date with how people are utilizing the internet still. Yeah. I want to remind everyone just, just real quick. Yes, you should have Google alerts set up, but also every now and then you want to Google yourself. So now go ahead and Google yourself and also look at what shows up in the short video tab. See what, what videos they're pulling up. Okay. Interesting. Um,

We actually covered this topic in a video on our other YouTube channel, The Season Marketer. Okay, that's where we do like tips, tutorials, all that stuff. And so we had released a video on this topic. I had a comment in there where someone asked, but what if I don't want my short form videos to appear in this tab? Okay.

And I was like, I had not really thought about that too much. Right. The only thing I can say, you guys, I don't know that there's any way to keep like, let's say as a business owner, if you don't want your reel showing up on this short form video tab, I don't know that there's a way to do it outside of just locking your your profile down to make it private. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the only thing you can do. Yeah. Is make your account private. Because when you create public content, anyone can use it. Unfortunately, people can take... I mean, are people going to take it? Probably not. There's a lot of stuff out there. But...

It's on the internet. Now I feel like I'm a crazy, I don't want to say a baby boomer. A baby boomer? Well, everything on the internet is forever. Okay.

That's true, though. Even though people don't scroll past your first 10 reels these days. Yeah. But it's still there forever. Yes. There's really no way that you can prevent. And I would make the argument, and we don't even need to, I think, further discuss this, but you're a small business owner that has a business profile. You're using it to attract people.

potential customers and clients. Yeah. Why you be posting stuff that you don't want people to find anyways? Like that doesn't, you know, unless the only thing I can think is if you're someone that maybe started out with a personal brand and that's it and you don't want other people like seeing it. Sure. But then your account should be private. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So go ahead, Google yourself, see what comes up on that video tab. Also,

Let's go ahead and talk about what you need to do to get the right videos to show up for the right search queries. Let's go back to Vivian's jean jackets. Okay. So let's say someone is Googling. I almost wish I had come up with like a funnier example. Do you want to come up with a funnier example? No, it's fine. I don't know. You don't have a funnier example? No. Jean jackets. Jean jackets. Okay. Okay.

Okay, what about like go-go boots? Okay, go-go boots. Okay, go-go boots. So you're googling... Go-go boots. Go-go boots. No, you're googling like how to style go-go boots, right? Because you want to make sure you're doing it right. You don't want to look ridiculous, okay? So when you do that, and then let's say you go to the short video tab, you're going to see videos that...

that most likely have that, not most likely, 100%. They're gonna have that phrase, how to style go-go boots on there. Think about SEO, SGE, we've talked about it, all these AI algorithms now. You need to make sure that you're feeding them the keywords, the key phrases you wanna show up for. A great example, location. Location is big now.

Just having the phrase salon in Somerville in your video is going to help you show up on Google for that search query. And you know, that's going to be a popular search query. Salons in Somerville. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so shocking. You guys have heard more than two episodes here and we've ever talked about Google. You know what I call Google the ultimate matchmaker.

Okay, I wasn't aware that we were doing funny voices. I just said matchmaker. No, it's fine. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it's the ultimate matchmaker. But think of it this way. If you're a matchmaker, how do you figure out who's going to be a good match for each other? Right? It's through questionnaires and interviews. Okay.

Consider it this way. You're a small business owner. Your captions, your hashtags, your tagged location is the questionnaire that you're filling out in order to tell Google, the matchmaker, what type of content, right? Yeah.

that you'd be who you'd be best suited for. Yes. And I think that also, yeah, don't forget the actual verbiage that you say in the video. They're crawling the video too. Yeah. And that's the, that's the way that I like to think about it is, you know, Google on their end has this little crawler that is going out there and for every piece of

Okay. These Instagram reels, these TikTok videos, these YouTube shorts, it's going out there and it's like, okay, let me look at what does the person say in the first like five seconds of the video? They have AI that's doing this. And it's like, oh, they say... How to style go-go boots. Here's how to style your go-go boots. Exactly. Okay. So I know it's...

Good for that, right? So verbally, they're saying what the video is about and it's about Go Go Boots. And I think this would be good for the person looking for this. Yes. Then it's like, let me look through the caption. Oh, the caption has something about Go Go Boots in it too and styling. Then let me look at the location. Oh, this...

boutique or whatever happens to be in Somerville, South Carolina, which is where the person or near the person who's searching for it. Yep. So the more you have check, check, check, the higher up you're going to be, you're going to be that first, second or third video in that tab, as opposed to being towards the bottom of the page. Yeah.

And so just be thinking about that whenever I know it can be a pain in the butt to write captions and you're like, does this even matter? It does now you guys. Okay. I'm not speaking for the algorithms on these platforms. What I'm saying is if Chelsea, if what Chelsea just told us is true and it is, yeah, it

And it is. And Google is wanting to give you the best content for what you're searching for, then all of that's going to be important. Yes. What you verbally say, your caption, your hashtags, and your location that's tagged. Yeah. And this doesn't have to be complicated. I know that probably sounded complicated. It doesn't have to be. It all comes back to knowing your target audience.

Yeah. You need to know the kind of questions that they would be searching because...

then you can easily just answer their questions. It can be that simple. Yeah, and I think, too, when you put yourself in the shoes of your target audience, think about things the way they would. Don't think about it as the business owner and as the expert in whatever industry or field you're in. Think about it from the person you're trying to tap into. If, for example, and I've been thinking about this recently,

Chelsea and I have a course and that course is geared towards people that want to sell products at markets, craft fairs, all of that. When I think about where they are in their, you know, deciding to take this on, I often think about it's probably the person that says, I'm ready to take that leap.

and that job, but I don't know where to start. Right. That's the person that would be really great for our course. That's a good match right there. Yes. So then maybe what I'm looking at is maybe let's create a couple reels of right before the person makes that big decision. What are they thinking? What are they, what type of content are they looking for? What are they Googling? Yeah. And so that's where I know we had run some, um,

Google ads in that area. And that's what we were looking at. Okay, well, what would they be Googling if they haven't made that leap yet, but they're about to? And sometimes that correlates exactly with the word craft fairs. Sometimes that correlates with the word markets. And then sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it starts with,

you know, business license. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I think those are all things to consider. I did want to also mention, Chelsea, you mentioned SGE. Can you get into, remind people as a refresher what SGE is? So SGE, search generative experience, it's basically Google's AI SEO, right? So for one,

It's going to be the synopsis that you see at the top of your Google search results page when you look something up. And what it's doing is Google is crawling all the information and taking bits and pieces from different websites. You as a small business owner want Google to take a part from your website because on the side, if you've Googled, you've seen on the side they have...

all the pages they pulled from, right? So you still want to show up even if Google is not showing you the websites immediately, but giving that synopsis, they're still showing you the websites. It's just on the side. Your best practices have not changed. It's just that now you want to make sure that you're a little more clear.

Yeah. And the reason we wanted to bring up SGE for this particular conversation is because, uh,

Like Chelsea said, it's basically Google's way of like making us lazy. It's using AI, right? Because instead of like when I Google how to style go-go boots, instead of me in the Google search results, let's say I don't click on that short video tab. Instead of scrolling all the way down and looking at all the options for web pages that I have that I can click on and find the answer myself, I'm going to go to Google search results.

I want Google to do the heavy lifting and to basically give me a synopsis at the top of the page. So the reason this is important to remember for this conversation with the new tab that they have is because you now have an opportunity for your reel, for your YouTube short to show up in

in that SGE portion of it if the content is good enough, right? Or for whatever you write in the caption. And so just another way for you to remember, it's not necessarily just that tab that your content could appear on. It could actually be the regular Google search results tab. I love that.

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Put some fire back into your social media, into your creativity. Because now, not only are your videos helping you get seen on these social media platforms, they're going to help you get seen on Google as well. And that's a big deal. That's another place for people to find your small business. So I love this for so many reasons, but mainly because...

Listen, I'm a small business owner. I'm right there with y'all. Sometimes you're tired. You're tired and you're like, why do I have to come up with another reel to post or whatever? Or my reels aren't getting enough engagement or views as it is, or it's decreased over the last two months, three months. It can be disheartening when you start to see that. But like Chelsea said, let this kind of revive that...

I don't know, desire to put more content out there and to talk about your small business even more because now you have the added bonus of being able to show up even more times on Google. So great. You have a website. You can show up for the Google search results page on that side.

Now your short videos can all appear on that short video tab if you go in and you actually approach it correctly and you do your part in trying to give Google enough data and information to where they can have it appear for certain queries or questions. Yes. Okay, Vivian, can I give the TLDL? Do it, girly. Okay. TLDL, too long, didn't listen. If you skipped ahead to this chapter, no.

Thank you for looking for a synopsis. When you get the chance, make sure you go back and listen to this entire conversation. But today, Vivian and I talked about the short video tab that's new to Google. Basically, what it does is it pulls information or pulls short videos from Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, etc.

And it's going to pull those videos that relate back to whatever search query the person looked up, right? This matters as a small business owner because this is another opportunity for you to show up

in front of your target audience because there are people who are Googling things that are interested in what you have to offer, right? So we want to make sure that you guys remember keywords, SEO. It's really important to make sure you're answering your potential audience's questions. And when you give Google and you give all these algorithms enough information,

So think captions, hashtags, what you are actually saying in the videos. All of that is really important for showing up in not just social media platforms, but now also in Google. Okay, Vivian, I think that is the TLDL. Thank y'all for listening. If you have any questions...

or you have a topic you want us to talk about go ahead and email us at help at the season marketer.com you can also send us a dm or leave a comment whatever works best for you also don't forget if you guys are needing more marketing support if you just want to join a community where once a week you could show up via zoom have people that are talking about all things marketing bounce ideas all

off of and also have people answer your questions join our sob small loan business community fifty dollars a month go check it out school skool.com slash sob and we hope to see you there yeah and go be the best sob you can be and go get a trucker hat