Social Search is Changing How People Discover Brands

Google might have turned its own brand name into a verb, but that doesn’t make it immune to the rise of social search. There are now so many other ways for consumers to discover brands and they’ll happily sit back and relax while marketers rush to reach them.

After a few years of massive digital growth, the average Australian has started using the internet slightly less and their time spent online has decreased by 5.9%. But, according to We Are Social’s Digital 2023 Report, although we’re spending less time on the web, our social media consumption has risen.

The average daily time spent using social media has increased by 6% and almost one in every three minutes spent online is now attributable to social media. Almost one in three Australians now visit social networks to look for information about brands and products, up 7.3% since last year. 

Why click when you can scroll and see what comes to you?

So, how is the growth of social media impacting search? Prabhakar Raghavan, a Google senior vice president recently said, “Something like almost 40 per cent of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”

Google has started incorporating images and videos into its search engine, but social search is more interactive and immediately relevant to the individual. Rather than sifting through brands that have the budget to optimise their Google search presence, consumers can just search and scroll through their favourite social app which “knows what they want to see”. 

For Gen Z, some of the most avid users of TikTok, doing a Google search is probably starting to feel a bit like a visit to a library. People don’t need to read and click through pages of search results anymore, they can just scroll through a few short videos to learn about what to buy, what to cook, movies to watch, and popular local haunts.

Time is precious.

While there are many people who would see clicking through to multiple websites as a great way to fact-check, there are probably just as many who would see it as wasted time.  

On social media, consumers can also learn from their favourite influencers, creators, and online communities whose recommendations are easier to trust than the results offered by traditional search engines.

A lot can happen in one moment.

According to Google themselves, visually rich and relevant content sparks action and brand discovery can happen at any moment. 86 per cent of people who go online are looking for shopping ideas and inspiration, while 73 per cent of people have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing an ad that is related to what they have been shopping for. 

There is a clear shift: consumers used to have to go to brands, but now the expectation is for brands to find their way to consumers.

Do consumers know too much?

34 per cent of our Gen Z friends want ads to be relevant to them and their identity. 42 per cent of them also want the ad to be entertaining. From the consumer’s perspective, they only need to make one Google search to be inundated with ads on other platforms. If they’re savvy enough, they can use the “in-market” signals we rely upon to make new brands come to them. Apple already forced its users to opt-in for ad tracking, giving a lot of people the opportunity to think about how it all really works.

People have been seeing ads and thinking “I only just spoke about that this morning” for too long. It’s never been easier for consumers to discover brands that are aligned with their personal interests - and given that we’re using their data, they’ve got every right to be lazy throughout their purchase journey.

The rebuttal:

Is it any surprise that Google recently announced the release of Demand Gen ads? They offer immersive creative experiences like social media ads but run across Google’s network. Google is also reimagining what a search engine can do using breakthroughs in generative AI. Using new generative AI capabilities, they’re working on helping people to understand topics faster, uncover new viewpoints, and get things done more easily. Google Shopping ads could be shown right underneath AI-generated answers, alongside YouTube short videos for people who want product recommendations.

So, what’s a marketer to do?

Is it getting easier or harder for brands to be discovered? On the one hand, it feels like brands have to be producing more on-point content for more social media platforms than ever before. However, high-powered algorithms and social networks are also levelling the playing field. 

Being discoverable in search engines is great, for the brands that can afford to invest in SEO and search ads. But, now there are plenty of other platforms out there to be discovered on. It’s never been easier to “find your tribe”, as long as you’re able to serve people what they want when they want it.