I want customers to find the business when they search social platforms
Social media SEO helps profiles and content appear when customers search inside social platforms.
This works out which keywords are worth having, and puts them in the fields the platform says it reads. Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Etsy and the app stores all publish which fields those are, and every one of them is different. TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn publish nothing, and the work says so rather than guessing on your behalf.
One platform to start. Each additional platform is added, because each one has its own fields and its own research.
It is keyword research for the platforms rather than for Google. The same idea as website search work, applied where people are actually looking.
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest all have their own search, and all of them read text. Plenty of businesses have never put a single deliberate word in front of them.
This is a new field and the term is not standard. It is called Social Media SEO here because that is the plainest description of what it does.
TikTok Shop is its own search: TikTok says a listing's title and description decide whether it appears in results. Setting one up has real requirements, including verified business documents and a US tax form, and one shop links to one official TikTok account. Setting it up and building the plan for it can be quoted. Ask and it comes back in writing.
Nine places run their own search, and they do not agree with each other. Which ones are worth your effort depends on what you sell and who buys it, and that is decided before a single keyword is written.
| Platform | What it says its search reads | How much it publishes |
|---|---|---|
| usernames, bios, captions, hashtags and places | Documented in detail. Instagram names the fields, and says the words you type are by far the strongest signal, ahead of your own activity and of popularity. | |
| YouTube | title, tags, description and video content | Documented, and YouTube itself says tags play a minimal role and that the title, thumbnail and description matter more. Most advice still sells you tags. |
| Pin titles, Pin descriptions, board titles and board descriptions | Documented as advice rather than as a specification. Pinterest calls itself a visual discovery platform and ties distribution to how people engage with a Pin once it is shown. | |
| TikTok | Not documented | TikTok has built a keyword tool for creators and calls search a way people explore topics, so the surface is real. What its search reads is not published. Its one public ranking article covers the For You feed, not search, and names captions, sounds and hashtags. |
| title, post text, author, flair, subreddit and url | Those are the filters Reddit's own search offers, which is the best available evidence of what it indexes. How it ranks is not documented anywhere. | |
| Etsy | title, tags, attributes, descriptions, first photo and reviews | The most detailed seller documentation of any platform here. Etsy also names what does NOT affect ranking, including a paid subscription and running its own ads. |
| App Store and Google Play | Apple: title, subtitle, keywords and primary category | Google Play names title, description and category, and has no keywords field at all. So the same app needs different words in each store. |
| Not documented | Meta publishes nothing about how Facebook Page search chooses results. The Page name, username, category and About text are what a person reads, so they are written to be read by a person. | |
| Not documented | LinkedIn's help pages on search cannot be read by any tool, and its engineering blog names ranking ideas rather than fields. Anything claiming a headline or skills weighting is somebody's inference. |
Every row above links to the platform's own documentation. Where a platform publishes nothing, the row says so rather than filling the gap with an opinion.
On management the two count as one, because that is one inbox and one scheduled post. Search is the opposite. The Page name, the username and the About text on Facebook are separate fields from the Instagram handle, name and bio, and they are edited in different places. So they are counted separately here.
What changes on each one is in the strategy, platform by platform. The claims that get sold and are not supported by any platform are in what does not work.
More on how working together works.
Same research, different placement. What changes is which fields exist and which of them the platform admits to reading.
The name field is the one most businesses waste. It is searchable and it does not have to be your business name, so it can carry what you actually do and the area you do it in. Then the bio, then the words in captions rather than in comments.
Page name, username and the About text, written for a person reading them. A Page that shares an exact name with an Instagram account still needs its own words, because the fields are edited separately and drift apart.
Written words are the only ones anybody can prove are read: the caption, the username, the display name and the bio. Saying the subject out loud in the first line is worth doing for the viewer either way.
Title and description carry the weight, on YouTube's own account. Tags get filled in for misspellings and then left alone. The thumbnail is not read by search and decides whether the result gets clicked.
Four fields, and two of them are the boards rather than the Pins: Pin title, Pin description, board title, board description. A business with well named boards is doing most of this already.
Different in kind. Reddit rewards a useful answer and punishes selling, and its own Reddiquette suggests no more than one in ten of your posts being your own. The work here is finding the threads where your buyers already ask, and answering as a person who knows the trade. Each subreddit sets its own rules on top of that, and they get read before anything is posted.
Product search, which is its own job. Etsy publishes the most detail of anybody. Apple has a dedicated keywords field and Google Play does not, so the same app is written twice.
Nothing verifiable is published, so the honest version is: the name, headline and About section are written for a person, and nothing is promised about ranking.
Two jobs, in this order. Find every keyword somebody might type, then throw most of them away. The second one is where the value is.
Before a single search is run: what you sell, in the order it sells. Who buys it and what they call it, which is rarely what the trade calls it. What you are willing to be known for, and what you do not want more of. The area you serve, and whether that is a street, a city or the whole county.
A plumber who wants emergency calls and a plumber who wants bathroom remodels need different words for the same trade. That gets decided with you, not assumed.
Four sources, and the list records which source every keyword came from.
The strongest tier. It is your business, recorded, rather than a guess about your market.
Suggestions are real behavior, but they are shaped by where and when you type them, so every one is recorded with both.
Every keyword on the list carries its source, its tier and the field it goes in. Nothing arrives as a bare list of phrases with no reason attached.
This is search inside the apps. What people type into Google, and which page on your website answers it, is keyword research. Different search, different results, different work. They pair well and neither replaces the other.
Three things get sold as social search work that no platform supports. None of them appear in what you buy here.
Instagram introduced alt text as an accessibility feature, so that people using a screen reader hear a description. Pinterest documents it the same way. Neither says search reads it. Write it, because somebody blind is trying to use your page. Do not buy it as a ranking tactic.
It may. TikTok has never published that it does, and the one article people cite for it is about the For You feed rather than search. Speaking the subject out loud early is still worth doing, because a viewer decides in those seconds. That is a reason a person can check, not a machine claim.
Instagram lists hashtags fourth in a list of five fields, behind usernames, bios and captions. YouTube says its tags do very little. A row of thirty tags under a post that never says what the business does is decorating the smallest field on the page.
The work is real and the term is not standard. Platforms have their own search and their own results, and those results are influenced by the words you use. Social Media SEO is the plainest name for it. Nobody has agreed on one yet.
Hashtags are one small part and their weight has changed over the years. Search inside a platform reads your handle, your bio, your captions, your on screen text and, on video, what you say out loud. That is a much bigger surface than a row of tags.
That result cannot be promised responsibly. What it does is make sure the keywords exist at all, which is often not the case today.
They are different searches with different results. Website work does nothing for what shows up inside TikTok.
I read it and reply with the scope and the price before any work starts.
Tell me the result you want and where I can see the business now. I use that information to identify the most useful service or package and decide whether I can quote it in writing. If one missing detail changes the work or price, I will ask for that detail or suggest a short call.
Derek PackerI will review what you sent and reply within two business days.
You will receive a copy of your inquiry. Look for an email from Derek Packer with the subject Inquiry Received — Here’s Your Copy. If it is not in your inbox, check spam, promotions or other folders. Still missing? Email [email protected].