July 2, 2025
Social search is now the front door to discovery. Recent DataReportal figures show nearly half of product journeys start inside TikTok, Instagram, or Pinterest. Google gets the hand-me-downs.
If your search plan still stops at blue links, you’re bleeding attention and margin to faster-moving rivals. Below, you’ll find the evidence the CFO will quiz you on and the immediate plays that keep you visible before the next quarterly review.
Social discovery now outranks Google for the audiences that matter. Global social identities touched 5.31 billion (64.7 % of humanity) in April 2025, up 241 million YoY datareportal.com.
Meanwhile, 41 % of Gen Z start every search on social, eclipsing classic engines at 32 % investors.sproutsocial.com. If your marketing budget still treats social as a broadcast channel, you’re funding someone else’s visibility.
The social search tipping point: numbers to drop in the board meeting
· In the UK 79 % of the population (54.8 m identities). DataReportal UK 2025 datareportal.com are on social,
· 46 % of Gen Z already prefer social to traditional engines for research and recommendations, eMarketer finds. eMarketer emarketer.com
· Sprout Social’s May study calls it flat-out: “social is becoming the new search engine.” GlobeNewswire globenewswire.com
Finance will understand the budget shift when you show them that every search journey now begins inside a walled garden you don’t fully control.
That means we need SMSEO (social media search optimisation) budgets that rival classic SEO.
Platform intelligence & actions
Each major platform has quietly hard-forked its discovery algorithm this year: TikTok now indexes spoken keywords, Instagram’s new Meta-AI search bar parses caption prose over hashtags, Pinterest is teaching its engine a descriptive “visual language,” LinkedIn bakes dwell-time into every ranking calculation, and Facebook elevates Groups above Pages while throttling external links.
These shifts aren’t gossip, they’re documented. The matrix below distils those updates into the tactics worth doing before Q4.
One clear pattern emerges: platforms now reward content engineered for their own search signals and quietly bury generic cross-posts. Script your primary keyword into TikTok’s first five seconds of audio, write 200-word Instagram captions that answer user intent.
Measure dwell-time, saves and meaningful comments, not vanity likes, and iterate fast; in 2025, relevancy is a live asset, not a static deliverable.
Three trends you should be testing this quarter
· Voice search inside video. TikTok users literally ask the platform for “how to descale a coffee machine”. If your audio doesn’t answer, you won’t appear.
· Search-optimised UGC and creator clips with natural language outrank slick brand spots; brief influencers to work your keyword into their opening line.
· Community-driven discovery such as Facebook/LinkedIn group posts surface higher than page posts. Invest in community managers, not only content creators.
Critique corner: what’s probably hype
1. AI filter bubbles. Instagram’s context-aware suggestions can trap users in comfort zones; diversify creative to avoid reach decay.
2. Hashtag overload. Irrelevant tags now trigger demotion on TikTok; cap at 3-5 precise terms.
3. Metric blindness. Platforms still hide search-query data; validate with social-listening panels and zero-party surveys.
Quick wins CMOs can approve today
· Re-record TikTok voice-overs to front-load your primary keyword; costs pennies, lifts visibility.
· Turn your FAQ page into an Instagram Guide, copy, paste, add visuals, hit publish. Hehe, double dip on existing content!
· LinkedIn’s algorithm is doubling-down on dwell-time and meaningful comments; long-form newsletters tick both boxes, and they arrive as a push notification and an e-mail, reach no other format can promise.
Search everywhere or be invisible
Scott Morris, CMO at Sprout Social, isn’t mincing words: “Social is becoming the new search engine… it’s the front-line channel for awareness and feedback.” localogy.com
The data backs him up. 41 % of Gen Z already start their queries inside TikTok, Instagram or Pinterest, leaving Google at 32 %. localogy.com
Forrester calls the new reality “search everywhere optimisation”. Being discoverable across social, AI tools, marketplaces and classic engines in one coherent strategy.
Translation for the board: keep pumping cash into a Google-only SEO line item and you’ll fund diminishing returns while competitors siphon intent from the feed.
Action for CMOs: ring-fence a budget that treats SMSEO as a first-class citizen, equal in headcount, tooling and KPIs to traditional SEO. The brands that do it early will own the highest-intent moments long before the next algorithm update rewrites the rules (again).
Need a sharper SMSEO roadmap? Book a 30-minute diagnostic with our strategy team and turn social searches into revenue before competitors’ cotton on.