With algorithms and search capabilities becoming more advanced on social platforms, most notably Tik Tok. People are favoring them over traditional search methods, like google maps.
Recently Google SVP stated that “almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to google maps or search. They go to Tik Tok or Instagram.”
UX/UI plays a big role here. Instead of searching on Google and being met with a 1000 listings controlled by the establishments themselves. You can search on Tik Tok and be met with a video, by a real customer that better establishes the setting, vibe, and the quality of food and service. All packaged in a short contained story. Its what ads should be. Genuine Reviews/recaps from a customer perspective. People prefer this over the establishments perspective of themselves.
So what does this mean for SERPs?
Search Engine Result Pages are looking a tad bit different these days. Websites use to dominate the SERPs. Now social media content is beginning to take its piece of the pie.
YouTube Content is being indexed quite high. No surprise there though as Google owns YouTube.
The Future
Important to note that Google is working with Instagram and Tik Tok to index clips. Google also has YouTube Shorts it can push. Google will make changes to their search platform. To combat Tik Tok’s growing share of the search market, they will at least add new similar features.
Ever since Google bought YouTube, YouTube SEO has been huge. Now moving forward, it seems SEO will be an important factor to consider on all Networks.
In our last scroll, we talked about how the competition from Tik Tok is good for the social media space as a whole. This too is good for creators. Learn best practices and take advantage of the new discoverability factor.