Google Discover adds follow feature and more social posts from creators and publishers

Google is rolling out new features in Google Discover to help promote publishers and content creators. There is a new follow publisher feature in Google Discover where you can subscribe to your favorite publishers. Plus, Google said it will show more social posts from X, Instagram and YouTube Shorts, from your favorite content creators, within Google Discover.

Follow in Google Discover. Similar to the new preferred source in Google Search, Google will now let you follow your favorite publications in Google Discover. When you follow those publications, Google may show content from those publications more often in your Discover feed.

Google said, “you’ll be able to personalize Discover with more content from your favorite publishers and creators.” I spotted Google testing this a few weeks ago, and I kind of like it.

After you click follow, Google will give you a preview of the publishers or creator’s content, “including articles, YouTube videos and posts from social channel,” so you can decide if you want to follow. You need to be signed into your Google account for this to work.

I was able to replicate this for my site, here is a screenshot:

More social content. Google will also start showing more content from content creators from social media platforms like X, Instagram, YouTube Shorts with more to come.

Google wrote, “you’ll start to see more types of content in Discover from publishers and creators across the web, such as posts from X and Instagram and YouTube Shorts, with more platforms to come. In our research, people told us they enjoyed seeing a mix of content in Discover, including videos and social posts, in addition to articles.”

Here is what a YouTube Short looks like in Discover:

Why we care. Content creators and publishers are looking for more ways to get more traffic to their sites. Google Discover is a great way for generating traffic and these new features will hopefully make that traffic more consistent.

You should try to encourage your readers to follow you on Google Discover and interact with your content.

Here is a GIF of it action: