Here's something most business owners still don't realize: a huge chunk of your audience isn't Googling anymore. They're opening TikTok, Reddit, or YouTube, typing in a question, and treating it exactly like a search engine. This is called social media search, and if your marketing strategy still treats SEO and social as two unrelated entities, you're leaving visibility (and leads) on the table.
Social media and SEO work together to build your brand credibility, authenticity, and audience. If your business’s online presence is hard to find, disconnected, or in need of a new strategy, we can help. Let’s talk.
What are social media search engines?
Social media search engines aren't a new category of app. They're the same platforms you already post on: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit (and even LinkedIn sometimes) are being used the way people used to use Google. Someone wants a restaurant recommendation, a product comparison, or a how-to, and they type it into a social app’s search bar instead.
According to Sprout Social, in Q2 of 2025, more than 40% of Gen Z looked to social media first when seeking information, opting to research using social media rather than traditional search engines, chat-based AI tools, or asking friends and family. This is a generation building its default search habits on platforms that used to be considered "just social media." And that reliance is only increasing.
YouTube isn't just a leisurely video platform anymore. It's one of the most popular search engines in the world, and the same shift is happening across other platforms too. Reddit threads show up in Google's top results. Instagram Reels and TikTok videos appear in dedicated "short videos" sections of the SERPs.
The line between "social platform" and "search engine" has basically disappeared. So if you’re wondering “What is the importance of social media in SEO?”, the answer is really that they’re indispensable to one another. Let’s get into it.
Is SEO dead? No, it’s not. But click the link to learn how it’s evolving.
Social media and SEO: how they actually connect
Let's clear something up: SEO and its relationship with social media isn't as simple as "posting on Instagram helps you rank on Google." Social shares aren't a direct Google ranking factor. The relationship is real, just indirect.
Here’s how we’ve seen this relationship work:
Social content drives traffic, and traffic builds authority. When people engage with your content on social platforms and click through to your site, that traffic signals to search engines that your brand is relevant and worth surfacing.
Search engines are pulling social content directly into results. Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and short-form clips are showing up in Google's search results for everyday queries, not just branded searches.
Social profiles are their own search real estate. Optimizing your bios, captions, and video titles with the right keywords helps you get found within the platforms themselves, making hashtags kind of irrelevant.
Google Business Profiles connect the two directly. Adding your social channels to your GBP listing means people searching for your business on Google can land straight on your social content too.
Why this matters more with short-form video
Social media and SEO intersect most visibly right now in short-form video content. Short clips are showing up in search results for how-to queries, product comparisons, and tutorials, often ranking above traditional articles for certain searches.
That means the way you optimize a 30-second Reel or TikTok matters just as much as the way you optimize a blog post. Captions, on-screen text, spoken keywords, and video titles all feed into whether that content gets discovered, both on the platform and in search results.
Why hiring separate vendors for SEO and social is a mistake
Here's a problem we see constantly: businesses hire one agency for SEO and a completely different one for social media, and that disconnect shows up fast.
The SEO team is optimizing blog content for keywords the social team has never seen.
The social team is posting content that has nothing to do with what's actually ranking or converting.
Nobody's sharing data.
Nobody's coordinating messaging.
And the client ends up paying two invoices for two strategies that are actively working against each other instead of together.
It’s pure madness!
This is exactly why hiring multiple marketing vendors so often costs businesses leads instead of generating them. Disjointed marketing doesn't just waste budget, it also complicates the customer journey. Someone finds you on TikTok, then lands on a website that says something completely different, and the disconnect kills trust before it ever gets to a conversion.
So, how do you fix disconnected marketing? An integrated strategy. We’ll let one of our Senior Content Specialists explain in more detail.
How Baal & Spots builds integrated strategy
We don't treat SEO and social media as separate departments that happen to share a client. Our social media content services and SEO work come out of the same strategy, built by teams that talk to each other daily.
This looks like:
Using keyword research to shape social captions and video scripts
Repurposing high-performing blog content into short-form video instead of starting from scratch
Making sure the messaging someone sees on Instagram or LinkedIn matches exactly what they find when they land on your website
When your social media efforts (paid and organic) are aligned with what's working in organic search, every channel reinforces the others instead of operating in a silo. We also don’t pin strategies against one another. We’re not mortgaging organic vs paid social media or SEO vs. GEO. Everything has its part to play in the beautiful production that is your online marketing. Leaving one service out of the equation can throw all of your marketing off course, which can mean content not turning into views, and views not turning into paying customers.
“Strategy, copywriting, content creation, scripting, platform management, community engagement, staying ahead of trends and industry updates...all of these typical social media services are supported by our SEO experts. We both bring ideas to the table from different lenses, so every piece of content is strong from every angle. The team scripts and stars in our videos, their blogs get turned into content, and social media is just one of the many channels working within that shared system. Every effort is intentional and interconnected because that's what brings our clients online success.
Ann Vuong, Social Media Expert at Baal & Spots
At Baal & Spots, SEO and social media search work better together
Social media search isn't replacing SEO, but it is expanding what "search" even means. Search engines are pulling social content into their results, social platforms are functioning as search engines in their own right, and businesses that keep these strategies separate are the ones falling behind.
Having an integrated strategy across both is what captures visibility wherever your customers are actually looking. Visibility equals awareness, which leads to trust, which results in conversions.
If your SEO and social media strategies feel like they're running on two different tracks, that's costing you more than you think. As a full-service Houston social media marketing agency, Baal & Spots builds integrated strategies that make sure your social media and SEO efforts work together instead of against each other.
Our team isn’t made up of siloed employees with no knowledge of what the others are doing. It’s made up of experts who work together at every step to make sure each service complements the others beautifully while working toward the same goal: growth for your business. If Baal & Spots sounds like the team you need for your organization, let’s see if we’re a match.
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