The Future of Search Is Social: What Brands Must Do Now
Social media has become a primary search tool, especially for younger audiences. According to Forbes, 46% of gen z and 35% of millennials now prefer social channels. These platforms are no longer mediums solely for social interaction and inspiration; they've become essential full-funnel tools for discovery and decision-making.
Search behaviour extends beyond captions and hashtags. AI analyses content visually, recognising objects, faces, logos, or even products to match content with user queries. Brands that understand each platform’s search behaviour can craft content that drives visibility and engagement.
TikTok: The New Frontier of Search
TikTok is more than a short-form video app, it’s a powerful discovery tool, especially for gen z – 64% use it for search, compared to 41% of Americans overall, according to Adobe.
How Brands Can Take Advantage:
Prioritise TikTok SEO: Use relevant keywords in captions, on-screen text, and hashtags to improve discoverability.
Leverage Visual Recognition: TikTok indexes not only text but also visual elements, including objects, logos, and faces.
Stay Trend-Driven: Engage with trending topics and challenges to keep content relevant and favoured by the algorithm.
Instagram: Visual Discovery Engine
With over 2 billion monthly users, Instagram is a key hub for product discovery and brand research, where users search via keywords, hashtags and the Explore page, and AI analyses both text and visuals for relevance.
How Brands Can Take Advantage:
Use Alt Text Strategically: Instagram reads alt text (auto-generated or user-written) to make content more discoverable, especially for visually impaired users.
Activate Shopping Tools: Leverage Instagram’s commerce features to surface your products in search and streamline purchases.
Extend Searchability Through Engagement: Live sessions aren’t keyword-searchable, but promotional content and replays can appear in Explore when optimised.
Pinterest: The Visual Search Powerhouse
Pinterest functions more like a visual search engine than a traditional social network. With a half a billion users turning to the platform monthly for inspiration, it’s a rich space for brands to be discovered.
How Brands Can Take Advantage:
Use the Lens Tool to Your Advantage: Pinterest’s Lens feature lets users search via photos, so uploading strong imagery boosts visibility.
Optimise Pins for Search: Include descriptive titles, overlays, and keywords to rank in visual searches.
Employ Rich Pins: These sync metadata from your site to deliver enhanced content that drives traffic.
Reddit: Threads That Uncover the Truth
Reddit isn’t just where Google searches end, it’s where 1.1 billion monthly active users seek recommendations, reviews, and how-tos. Reddit’s user base over indexes with younger audiences, with approximately 65% of Redditors falling between 18-34 years old and almost half of the US population ages 18-29 active on the platform.
How Brands Can Take Advantage:
Engage in Authentic Conversations: Reddit’s new AI-powered search feature 'Reddit Answers' summarises top-rated comments among sub reddits. Active, credible participation in comment threads can boost visibility.
Use Reddit Ads Strategically: Target keywords to serve ads alongside relevant user searches and subreddit discussions.
Mine for Insights: Explore niche subreddits to uncover what users are saying about your brand and use as fodder for innovation, content ideas, and audience research.
YouTube: The World’s Second-Largest Search Engine
YouTube’s algorithm weighs more than just titles and descriptions, it also factors in watch time, engagement, and content relevance to rank search results.
How Brands Can Take Advantage:
Boost SEO with Smart Keywords: Use tools like TubeBuddy, VidIQ, or Google Trends to integrate high-performing keywords into titles, descriptions, and dialogue.
Create Search-Driven Content: 'How-to' and 'best of' video formats dominate search, so use as a hook for brand content.
Optimise Transcripts and Captions: Upload custom captions and make sure your script naturally uses target keywords – both are indexed and improve discoverability.
Looking Ahead: Navigating the Evolving Landscape
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are reshaping search, delivering conversational answers enriched by user-generated social content. As multimodal search (text, image, voice) gains traction, brands must embrace Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) for AI-driven discovery.
But this shift carries risks. Consumers may trust flawed AI responses, and algorithms can reinforce echo chambers. While users turn to social for trends and LLMs for quick, tailored answers, traditional search still matters for fact-checking and broad context.
Despite the challenges, LLMs and smart algorithms are here to stay. Brands must remain agile, informed, and innovative to stay discoverable, credible, and relevant in this new era of search.
