As social and search start to intertwine, our Organic Social Senior Manager, Sarah Bell, shares her thoughts on what this shift means for brands – and how to adapt your strategy to stay visible.
There’s a big buzz in the social world right now, and it’s all about connected search. You may have heard that social media search engines are becoming the search tools of the future, as Brandwatch claims that “75% of consumers use social media to research brands, and nearly 28% actively use social media to find products to buy.”
This means that social platforms are now redefining how we discover information, and it might leave you wondering: How does this impact my social strategy?
There are three key ways to leverage search strategies within your social presence as a brand.
To maximise visibility, you must ensure that your social content is highly relevant to your audience; this means that the content must embody relevant brand personas to ensure that it maximises discoverability across all platforms.
Ask yourself: Why would users search for your product on social instead of going straight to your site? One answer may be that they are still in the discovery phase, and they wish to have a deeper understanding of your product.
We now know users are increasingly turning to social media for inspiration and discovery. Pinterest, for example, reported that “a whopping 85% of weekly Pinners have made a purchase based on a pin they saw from a brand”
This highlights how platforms like Pinterest, TikTok, and Instagram can serve as powerful discovery tools for product commerce, as they help to guide your product in front of the right audiences, if you have the right key words applied.
By ensuring your content is as relevant to your audience as possible, with the right keywords applied, you can establish brand authority and influence users at the higher end of the funnel to trust your brand.
To make your content more discoverable and relevant to your audience, you must refine your keyword strategy. Like any solid search approach, you need a clear understanding of your best-performing keywords to apply across social content.
By identifying what your customers are searching for, you can strategically integrate high-performing keywords into your social content to enhance brand discoverability, engagement, and most importantly, search demand for your brand.
This is where the fun starts, as you can begin to create relevant and searchable content for your brand. This could come in the form of brand awareness content using top-performing keywords or answering FAQs that your audience is asking across Google or other social platforms. It’s time to get creative!
Rule #3: Connect Social Trends with Your SEO Strategy
Integrating social trends with your SEO efforts will enhance brand discoverability and build trust in your product. Posting product-related content within easily digestible video content such as Instagram Reels or TikTok videos vastly expands your brand’s reach and increases the likelihood of users engaging with the content as well as being willing to click to find out more.
Sprout Social claims that: “Video will continue to dominate social media, especially short-form video. Marketers need to double down on snackable videos optimised for mobile. However, since overall video consumption is expected to grow, brands need to work harder to create content that stands out”.
This means that your content must not only clearly define your brand and be relevant to your audience, but it must also be contextually relevant within the social platform in which it resides. It seems like social is becoming more of a science each day!
Once you crack the social trend you wish to tap into, you may wish to align your content to your SEO strategy to enhance relevance for your audience. You may support your social content with blog posts or website articles, which creates a deeper, more informative experience for users.
This reinforces trust in your brand, improves search rankings, and drives valuable traffic to your website.
The way consumers search for and discover brands is evolving, and social media is becoming a major part of that journey. By creating searchable content, optimising your keyword strategy, and aligning social trends with SEO, you can significantly improve your brand’s visibility and engagement.
As platforms continue enhancing their search functionalities, brands that adopt a connected search approach will be better positioned to attract and retain their audience.
Now is the time to rethink how your social strategy aligns with search because those who master this shift will lead the way in the future of digital discovery.
If connected search isn’t on your radar yet, it should be. From smarter content to sharper targeting, our social team is here to help your strategy go further – let’s chat.
75% of consumers use social media to research brands, Brandwatch, LinkedIn
Social Media Trends 2025, Hootsuite
25 must-know Pinterest stats for marketers in 2025, Sprout Social
60+ social media video statistics, Sprout Social
