Social Search

As search evolves with generative AI, so does the way people search for information. From search engines to social media, brands must be present at every relevant part of the user journey.

Optimising for social search and search everywhere

Optimising for search doesn’t just mean gaining visibility in search engines, it means optimising for wherever your customers are searching. Whether that be in AI search, in social media, on an ecommerce platform, or anywhere else – we help businesses show up on the platforms that are most important to your customer base.

Especially with the advancement of generative AI, user research is becoming deeper and more cross-platform than ever before. No longer is SEO or paid search enough to drive the conversion; your brand visibility and reputation across social media needs to provide the trust signals to inspire or convince the customer that they’re making the right decision.

From improved visibility in social media, to improving trust signals and reputation, we can help your brand perform on any search platform.

Social platform SEO services

Every platform has its own search behaviour, ranking factors and audience expectations. Our specialists tailor SEO/GEO strategies for each, helping your brand build visibility, trust and measurable growth wherever your audience is searching.

Instagram SEO

We help particularly visual brands optimise their content and gain increased visibility for their image and video content on Instagram. Additionally, where Instagram is a regular feature in Google SERPs, we can help brands with strategic direction for optimising for queries where Instagram results are prominent in traditional search.

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TikTok SEO

For brands where their customer base finds inspiration, advice or purchases directly on TikTok, we can help support you with strategic direction, keyword research and video optimisation. Optimising for TikTok is much more strategic than just creating good-looking videos - and we help businesses and marketing teams to understand what they need to be successful on TikTok.

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Reddit SEO

Reddit is a powerhouse for user generated content, often becoming the go-to source for trusted reviews and real life experiences of using a product or a service. With some AIs leaning heavily on Reddit data, too, ensuring your brand is well positioned on the platform is more important than ever. We help brands optimise for Reddit and influence their AI results positively.

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Pinterest SEO

For brands where visual inspiration is key, Pinterest is often a go-to place for users to find inspiration for their next holiday, their next home improvement project, or anything in-between. If you’ve identified Pinterest as a key platform where your customers start purchase journeys but don’t know how to optimise for it - or you’re not sure on the role Pinterest should play in your marketing strategy - we can help.

LinkedIn SEO

For more commercial brands, or where brand narrative is important, optimising for improved presence in Linkedin - or taking advantage of how Linkedin content is used in AI search - is an area where we excel. At Varn, we can help your business understand the complexities of optimising for Linkedin, and provide the strategic layer and guidance to seeing more visibility and performance on the social media platform.

YouTube SEO

YouTube isn’t just for content creators: video content is increasingly powerful in AI search and can be extremely complementary to other marketing efforts. Video transcripts help AI to understand the context of the video and surface the clip where its relevant. If your competitors are doing this and you’re not, you risk missing out on AI visibility at a critical part of the user journey. For a more strategic look at how YouTube optimisation should be part of your marketing tactics, get in touch with us today.

Amazon SEO

For online retailers or brands, prominent display on the internet’s most popular ecommerce platform can be the difference between success and failure. Ensuring your product listings are meeting the demands in terms of content quality, and considering the search terms your customers are using, is paramount to your success. We can help be the strategic success story behind your Amazon product feeds.

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01.

What is social search, and why does it matter for my business?

Social search is the shift towards people searching for information on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Reddit, rather than starting with Google. For your business, it means visibility now depends on more than a traditional search results page. Customers are researching, comparing and forming opinions of brands across the platforms they already spend time on, and that activity increasingly shapes what AI search tools like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT choose to cite.

02.

Why is having a presence on social platforms becoming so important for AI search visibility?

AI search tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews increasingly favour real discussion and firsthand experience over polished web copy when forming their answers. Platforms like Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube are full of exactly that kind of content, which means an active, credible social presence has become a genuine factor in AI visibility, not just a brand awareness channel. Put simply, brands already visible and trusted on these platforms are the ones AI tools are increasingly citing.

03.

Why do social platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn show up in AI search answers?

AI search tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews increasingly draw on platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn when forming their answers, treating genuine discussion and expert commentary as more trustworthy than polished marketing copy. That means your visibility and reputation on these platforms directly shapes whether, and how, your brand gets mentioned when someone asks an AI a question.

04.

Which social platforms should I be optimising for search visibility?

It depends on where your audience already searches, not just where they scroll. Younger, visual audiences search on TikTok and Instagram; B2B buyers increasingly search LinkedIn and Reddit; ecommerce brands can’t ignore Amazon’s own search function. We help you identify which of these matters most for how your specific customers search, rather than spreading effort across all of them.

05.

Is social media replacing Google search?

Not entirely, but it is reshaping it. Around a quarter of people worldwide now use social platforms as their main way of searching, rising significantly among younger audiences. Google remains the dominant search engine overall, but for everyday queries, such as a product recommendation or an honest review, social platforms are increasingly the first place people look.