In 2022 The New York Times made the early observation that Gen Z was turning to TikTok as their go-to search engine of choice and the number of converts would only increase. As we know whatever Gen Z does, everyone else soon follows. Not only do they have the keen radar for what’s cool and on-trend, but they also have a low tolerance for inefficiency and anything flat. These needs translate directly into how they navigate the online sphere. Now, as Gen Z already knew two years ago, we’re seeing all social media platforms thriving in this space and a recent Adobe study even showed that 5 out of the top 10 platforms that were most helpful when searching for information were all social media platforms, with YouTube being in second place and TikTok following closely behind in the fourth spot (with 64% of Gen Zers using it as their search engine of choice).
So what’s really behind the mass migration away from Google, Bing, and Yahoo!?
- Personalization
- The platforms are powered by insightful algorithms that get to know users through more frequent interactions. Therefore, the more time spent on these platforms, the easier it gets to see the results you want and find the exact information, content, and creators you, and you alone, want to see
- Want something for a specific location? No problem, adjust your filters and immediately the information you’re looking for gets to be hyper-focused. No one has the time or the patience to sift through more results than they need to and social media platforms make it easy
- Visual appeal
- Search engines are heavy on text and light on visuals, whereas social media (as we all know) leads with visuals first (whether videos or images). And in today’s day and age, everyone is becoming more and more reliant on an engaging visual experience than one that is dominated by blocks of text. Perhaps it’s a lack of patience, but perhaps it’s just how much more powerful and clear a video or an image is in communicating a lot more information with a lot less
- Digestible
- TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels especially are ultra snackable bits of content that don’t consume so much time, which is the most precious of commodities in today’s fast-paced world. When you need information quickly, you’re more likely to scroll through a few tutorials or reviews that last less than a minute rather than spending double, triple, quadruple that time reading that same information
- Localized
- If you’re already scrolling through a social media platform, and suddenly you need to get some specific information, you can find it right at your fingertips without having to navigate away from your current interface. Whereas with social media engines, you’ll naturally get bounced around from one website to another, to a PDF, to maybe one social media platform or another social media platform. It’s nearly enough to feel overwhelming, exhausting, and juice that’s just simply not worth the squeeze to any user
- Timely
- Search engines don’t always deliver the most recent/timely content, especially since the results are presented based on quality and relevance (after the web crawlers pick up the information/links). On the other hand, social media platforms can sort results by date and time of posting, which can make it easier when you’re looking for the most-up-to-date travel tips or what styles dropped most recently at Zara
Why do we care anyway?
For brands, this can be extremely valuable insight if you want more of your target demographic to be able to discover your products and best understand how to use them. On brand-owned channels, you can manage the communication to your audience and by partnering with creators, you can use them as your “authentic voice” and even give their community the opportunity to chime in via comments to add more colour and context (and second, third, fourth, fifth opinions!). You can almost guarantee that people are spending just as much time reviewing the comments (if they aren’t actively participating themselves) as they are consuming the content itself. For creators who want to leverage this shift, you can tailor your content even more to align with common/popular search terms, include relevant hashtags in your captions, and be as descriptive in your profile/bio as possible.
As a result of the uptick in genuine influencer content and the feeling that they give of being close friends instead of internet strangers, these social media platforms have now as a result usurped the original Ask Jeeves’ of the worlds.
A few things to consider when producing content:
- Hashtags
- Keywords
- Alt text
- What does your customer/follower care about (tailor your keywords, hashtags, alt text, and content to reflect this!)
- Make it easy for people to get to products (clickable links, retailer call-outs, etc.)
We would be remiss if we did not mention the one (very big) red flag: accuracy. There’s still a lack of trust amongst many user groups when it comes to the accuracy of information shared on social media, especially when it’s unvetted from sources that are not of maximum credibility (i.e. not directly from brands or from legitimate newsrooms). Having said that, when was the last time your friend gave you the most accurate advice? If that’s what you want, social media is where you’re going to get it - it might be right, it might not be what you want to hear, but it might be the most engaging thing you’ll have consumed all day and that’s sometimes worth it alone.
Featured Image Credit: Image by freepik
