Why Your SEO and Social Teams Need to Talk More

If you want to find a decent Italian restaurant for dinner tonight, what do you do?

If you’re over 30, you probably open Google Maps, type “Italian restaurant,” and check the star ratings. But if you ask a 22-year-old, they won’t go near Google. They’ll open TikTok or Instagram, search “Manchester Italian Food,” and decide based on the vibe of the videos they see.

For a growing chunk of the population, Social Media is the new Search Engine.

For years, businesses have treated SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Social Media as two separate departments. SEO was for ranking; Social was for brand awareness. But in 2025, those lines have blurred completely. If you are still asking what social search is and what it means for SEO, you are already playing catch-up. If your digital strategy ignores it, you are invisible to 40% of your potential market.

Here is why your search strategy needs to look beyond Google, and how different platforms are stealing the search crown.

Instagram: The Visual Validator

Google is great at giving you facts. It can tell you a product’s dimensions, price, and shipping time. But it’s terrible at giving you a “feel.”

Modern buyers struggle with what we call “text fatigue.” They don’t want to read a 500-word description of a hotel room; they want to see a reel of someone walking through it. They don’t want to read about how a dress fits; they want to see it in motion.

This is where Instagram marketing has evolved from a vanity project into a critical search tool. Users are searching for hashtags like #KitchenInspo or location tags not just to browse, but to validate a purchase decision. If your Instagram feed is empty or low-quality, a user who found you on Google might bounce immediately because you failed the “visual validation” test.

TikTok: The “How-To” Engine

We need to stop thinking of TikTok as just a dancing app. It is a massive information retrieval system. In fact, Google’s own executives have admitted that TikTok is their biggest competitor for search traffic among younger demographics.

Why? Because it answers questions instantly. If you type “How to fix a leaking tap” or “Small Business Accounting Tips” into TikTok, you get instant, bite-sized answers from real humans. You don’t have to wade through recipe blogs to get to the ingredients; you get the answer in 15 seconds.

If your business isn’t optimising your video captions, hashtags, and spoken audio for these keywords, you are missing out on high-intent traffic. Our TikTok marketing services focus heavily on this “searchability,” ensuring your content appears when users are looking for answers, not just entertainment.

Facebook: The Community Trust Signal

You might think Facebook is old news, but for local businesses and specific demographics, it is still the king of recommendations.

People don’t just search for businesses on Facebook; they search for opinions about businesses. They join local community groups and ask, “Can anyone recommend a reliable roofer?” or “Has anyone used X Software?”

This is “Social Search” in its purest form—word of mouth at scale. A strong Facebook marketing strategy ensures that your page is active, responsive, and filled with the kind of social proof (reviews, community engagement) that seals the deal when your name gets mentioned in those threads.

LinkedIn: The B2B Due Diligence

For our B2B clients, LinkedIn is arguably more important than Google. Before a Procurement Manager fills out the contact form on your website, they have almost certainly searched for your company name on LinkedIn.

They are doing due diligence. Do you post regular insights? Do your employees look engaged? Do you have recommendations from other businesses?

If your LinkedIn marketing is weak, all the Google SEO in the world won’t save the deal. Your LinkedIn profile needs to be optimised for keywords just like your website does. It needs to scream “Expertise” to anyone who searches for your brand name.

X (Twitter): The Real-Time Newsroom

When a website goes down, a bank app crashes, or a major industry event kicks off, people don’t Google it—they check X.

X is the world’s only true “real-time” search engine. It is where users go to find out what is happening right now. If your brand isn’t part of that immediate conversation, you look slow or disconnected.

For businesses, this is critical for reputation management and “social listening.” Users are actively searching for brand mentions to see how you handle complaints or to gauge public sentiment before they buy. Our X (Twitter) marketing services ensure you are monitoring these search terms and positioning your brand as responsive and present in the moment.

The Mechanics of “Social SEO”

So, how do you actually rank on these platforms? The rules are surprisingly similar to traditional SEO, but with a twist. We often get asked, “Does social media affect SEO?“ directly—and while the link isn’t always direct, the impact on visibility is undeniable.

• Keywords in Captions: Algorithms now “read” your captions and listen to your audio. You need to include your target keywords naturally in your post text and scripts.
• The “Alt Text” Factor: Just like on a website, adding Alt Text to your social images helps the platform understand what the image is about, helping it surface in search results.
• Engagement is Authority: On Google, backlinks prove you are popular. On social, engagement (saves, shares, comments) proves you are relevant. High engagement tells the algorithm, “This is a good answer to that search query.”

The Hybrid Strategy

So, should you ditch Google? Absolutely not. Google is still the king of Intent. When someone wants to buy right now, they usually go to Google.

But Social Media is the king of Discovery. It’s where people find out you exist before they even know they need you.

The winning strategy for 2026 is a hybrid one. It connects your SEO strategy with your Social Media activity. It acknowledges that the lines are blurring between SEO and social media marketing. It means using the same keywords in your Instagram captions as you do in your H1 tags. It means ensuring your visual identity on TikTok matches your website.

At Platform81, we don’t look at these channels in silos. We look at the total “Search Landscape.” Whether they are searching on Google, Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, Etsy and eBay, we make sure you’re the answer they find.

Ready to get visible everywhere? Contact us today to discuss a unified search strategy.