SEO, or search engine optimization, helps search engines deliver relevant web results based on your queries. While social networks aren’t true search engines, the lines between traditional SEO and social SEO are blurring. All social platforms are increasingly adopting traditional search engine functionalities, in addition to the “For You” feeds, to help users find the content they’re looking for. In fact, in a January 2024 survey, a HubSpot survey confirmed that over 42% of survey recipients strongly agreed that they preferred finding brands on social media rather than traditional search engines.
Social SEO is all about being found when users search for content, not just when they scroll through their feeds on social platforms. Social SEO aids in discovery of your content and social accounts, so you can potentially reach a larger audience than just your fan base.
Following are some best practices for optimizing your social platforms for search.
High-impact practices for social SEO
Adding keyword-rich profile names, bios and hashtags
Your profile name should mirror your brand name or business. Brand searches capture the bulk of search intent, so make sure you have your brand name well positioned within your social profile name.
Profile bios are descriptions of your account that can be up to 150 characters long on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and between 1,500 to 2,000 characters long on LinkedIn and YouTube. Bios are an ideal place to convey your brand personality, include your industry keywords, add a call-to-action (follow, links etc.) and add your brand hashtags (even though brand hashtags have diminished in value over the years).
I would recommend avoiding using Unicode in your bio or profile name. Unicode standard defines a set of characters that can be used in different languages and scripts, which, in the social media world, is used to stylize, bold or italicize text. Unfortunately, Unicode renders the text completely inaccessible to users of assistive technology, and hence, should be avoided. Learn more about accessibility in social media.
Use alt-text and closed captions
Add text-based features such as alt-text to your image posts, and closed captions to your video posts or Reels. Most platforms provide a route to upload your closed captions file. On Instagram, you can only turn on auto-generated captions for your video posts or Stories, or add closed captions in the app when editing a Reel or Story.
Use keyword-rich post captions and video descriptions
Combining content that your audience cares about (read engagement) along with crafting keyword-rich post captions is probably the biggest factor in expanding your reach on individual posts. In 2022, Instagram officially confirmed that captions were now a better ranking factor than hashtags. This was confirmed by a Hootsuite experiment later that year.
Front-loading your captions with highly searched keywords around your brand makes perfect sense. Your keywords should feel natural, and not crammed in.
This concept also translates over to YouTube, where you should load your video title and description with keywords. Another key element to pay attention to on YouTube is the video thumbnail which can potentially feature variations of the keywords you haven’t used in the title or the description.
Finding keywords for social media content
Google Ads and Google Trends are two quintessential tools for finding keywords for search. Now, searches on different social platforms may vary slightly, but knowing about your top brand searches should come in handy when planning social media content across all platforms.
You can discover topics that your YouTube audience is interested in within your channel’s YouTube Studio. Navigate to YouTube Studio > Analytics > Inspiration to find such topics.
TikTok, too, has come up with a keyword or topic discovery tool called Creator Search Insights, which you can leverage to find trending searches on the platform. You can then produce content around these to hop on trends (also known as trend-jacking). Saying keywords out loud in your video content is an excellent strategy, although it requires a bit more pre-planning. Combined with optimized captions and transcripts, this is a win for SEO and accessibility both.
The introduction of Meta AI in Instagram search further signals that SEO and social have to be strategized in tandem. In my experience, 8 out of 10 brand Instagram searches featured results that had a variation of the search query present in the caption. (The search doesn’t seem to be on point for Reels and video content, yet).
Social, the future of search
The rise of social SEO has been a significant but steady trend. Back in 2022, Google reported that social platforms are taking over Google’s market share in search and maps. The coming of age of ChatGPT and generative AI tools is another development that has rocked the search world. The result of all of this could be major search engines making room for social platforms. We are already seeing Google search results featuring TikTok and Instagram content. As the digital search landscape evolves, we will be following along.