of US consumers have used TikTok as a search engine, up from 41% in 2024
Adobe Express, 2026CONTENT | PAID CAMPAIGNS | SOCIAL SEARCH | COMMUNITY | REPORTING
Half of American consumers have now used TikTok as a search engine, and platforms have quietly become places people look things up rather than just scroll. That changes what social is for. We run it as a discovery and trust channel that supports your search presence, and we report on enquiries rather than follower counts.
Social media marketing services covering content creation, paid campaigns, community management and reporting. We treat social as a discovery and trust channel that supports search rather than a separate numbers game, because platforms are increasingly used as search engines and brand recognition now influences both Google results and AI answers.
Recent survey data, sources named. The picture is more nuanced than either the hype or the backlash suggests.
of US consumers have used TikTok as a search engine, up from 41% in 2024
Adobe Express, 2026of Gen Z have used TikTok to search for something
Adobe Express, 2026of Gen Z actually prefer TikTok over Google, down from 8% in 2024
Adobe Express, 2026still rate Google as the most helpful platform for search, against 16% for TikTok
Adobe Express, 2026of business owners have used TikTok for promotion
Adobe Express, 2026use TikTok influencers for products, up from 25% in 2024
Adobe Express, 2026Two of those numbers appear to contradict each other and both are true. Half of consumers have used TikTok to search for something, and only four percent actually prefer it to Google, a figure that halved in two years. People are using social platforms to search, and they are not replacing search engines with them.
That matters because it kills the two most common pieces of advice. Social is not replacing search, so abandoning SEO for TikTok is a mistake. But social is now a genuine discovery surface with real search behaviour inside it, so treating it purely as a broadcast channel misses what it has become.
The honest position is that social does its best work as a supporting channel: people discover you there, verify you there, and then search for you by name. That branded search is where the conversion happens, and it does not show up in your social reporting at all, which is why so much social work looks like it is not working when it is.
Source: Adobe Express 2026 study, 807 US consumers surveyed January 2026.
The standard argument about social marketing is whether it delivers sales. For most businesses it does not, directly, and agencies that promise otherwise end up reporting on engagement rates because there is nothing better to show.
What social does do is make people aware you exist, then make them comfortable enough to enquire. Somebody sees your work, follows you, sees you again, and three weeks later searches your name on Google. Your analytics records that as branded organic search and your social report records nothing, so the channel that started the process gets no credit.
There is a second effect that has grown recently. Brand recognition and consistent presence across platforms feed the signals both search engines and AI systems use to decide whether a business is real, established and worth recommending. Social is now part of how you become a recognised entity, which is a search outcome as much as a social one.
So we run it as a supporting channel with honest measurement: what it contributed to branded search, what it contributed to enquiries that mention finding you there, and what paid campaigns actually returned. Not follower growth.
Six things we hear repeatedly, most of them reasonable complaints.
Usually posting into a channel with no audience, or posting content that serves the brand rather than the viewer. Consistency without relevance produces a tidy grid and no commercial outcome.
What we do: Work out what your audience actually wants to see, cut the platforms nobody is on, and measure whether branded search and enquiries move rather than whether the grid looks busy.
Engagement is the easiest metric to produce and the least connected to revenue. It is also what agencies report when there is nothing better available.
What we do: Change what is being measured. If the content is not producing enquiries or branded search, the content needs changing, and a report full of engagement rates hides that instead of showing it.
Half right. Organic reach on Facebook is minimal for most pages, but discovery through TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts is genuinely available without spend, and half of consumers now use TikTok to search.
What we do: Put organic effort where discovery still works and use paid where it is actually needed, rather than accepting a blanket rule that suits whoever is selling ad management.
The most honest objection on this list. Most small businesses cannot sustain a daily content operation and should not pretend otherwise.
What we do: Build a calendar the business can actually maintain, usually fewer posts of better quality, with batching so filming and writing happen in blocks rather than daily.
Follower count is a poor proxy for commercial performance. Plenty of large accounts generate nothing and plenty of small ones drive steady enquiries, particularly in B2B and local services.
What we do: Compare what matters: are they getting enquiries, is their branded search growing, are they being mentioned. Usually the answer changes how worried you should be.
Sometimes, and the market has matured enough that it is no longer automatically wasteful. Thirty eight percent of business owners now use TikTok influencers, up from a quarter two years ago.
What we do: Work out whether your category is one where recommendation carries weight, then start small with people whose audience matches yours rather than whose follower count impresses. Measure it properly before scaling.
Working out which platforms your customers actually use and dropping the ones they do not, rather than defaulting to being everywhere and doing all of it badly.
A realistic calendar built around what your business can sustain, with formats that suit each platform rather than the same post cross published five ways.
Meta, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok advertising with proper audience setup, creative testing and budget management, reported on cost per enquiry rather than reach.
Profile, caption, hashtag and on screen text work so your content is findable by people searching inside the platforms, which is now a meaningful share of how content gets discovered.
Responding to comments and messages, handling complaints publicly and well, and keeping the account alive between posts. Frequently the difference between a profile that converts and one that does not.
Branded search movement, enquiries that mention social, paid cost per lead, and what actually happened. Follower counts included for reference, not as the headline.
Social supports the search work rather than replacing it. The brand recognition it builds feeds directly into how AI systems and search engines judge whether your business is established, which is covered in our SEO services.
AI assistants form their view of a business from everything available about it, and social profiles are part of that: what you do, how long you have been doing it, what people say about you, whether the details match everywhere.
This is the part of social marketing that has changed most quietly. A business with consistent, active, professional profiles reads as established. One with abandoned accounts, inconsistent names or a page last updated in 2022 reads as uncertain, and uncertainty is why a model names a competitor instead.
There is also the discussion effect. Community threads, comments and creator content about your category are sources these systems draw on, which means being talked about has direct search consequences it did not have before.
We factor that into how profiles are set up and maintained: consistent naming and details across every platform, clear descriptions of what the business does, and active accounts rather than dormant ones. Small things, and they compound with the rest of the search work.
It works much better for some businesses than others, and we will tell you which you are.
Highly visual, strong local discovery, and one of the few categories where social drives direct bookings.
Product discovery, launches and the social search behaviour that is growing fastest here.
Before and after content and trust building, with careful handling of medical advertising rules.
Listing exposure and agent visibility, where personal presence matters as much as the brand.
Reaching prospective students and parents where they already spend time, with strong seasonal patterns.
LinkedIn led, slower, and mostly about credibility rather than reach. We will say if it is not worth the spend.
Social is a discovery and trust layer. It gets you in front of people who were not looking for you and makes them comfortable enough to take the next step, which is usually a search for your name.
That next step lands on your search presence, which is why the two work better together. Our SEO services handle what happens once somebody goes looking, and social feeds the demand that makes them look.
For businesses with a physical location, local SEO is where social traffic converts, because people check the map listing and the reviews before visiting. A strong social presence with a neglected Business Profile wastes the interest it created.
And where paid social has become too expensive to carry acquisition on its own, which is common now, PPC management and organic search work take the pressure off rather than adding to the same bill.
Audit of current profiles and performance, competitor review, platform decision, and a content plan the business can realistically sustain.
Profiles corrected and completed consistently across platforms, tracking connected, and the first batch of content produced.
Content running to schedule, paid campaigns launched where they are justified, formats and messages tested against each other.
Monthly reporting on enquiries, branded search movement and paid cost per lead, with the plan changed based on what produced something.
Not directly. Social links do not pass ranking authority and Google has been consistent about that. What social does is generate branded search, which is a real ranking and trust signal, and build the brand recognition that both search engines and AI systems use to judge whether a business is established.
So the honest answer is that it helps indirectly and meaningfully, but anyone telling you posting will lift your rankings is describing a mechanism that does not exist.
Fewer than you are probably on now. The right answer depends on whether your customers are there and whether you can sustain the content, and for most small businesses that means one or two platforms done properly rather than five done badly.
As a rough guide: Instagram and TikTok for visual consumer businesses, LinkedIn for B2B and professional services, Facebook for local and older demographics, YouTube where explanation or demonstration matters. We will tell you which to drop, which is usually the more valuable half of the answer.
Less often than the advice suggests, and consistently. Three good posts a week sustained for a year beats daily posting for six weeks followed by silence, which is the pattern most businesses actually follow.
The real constraint is what you can maintain. We plan around your capacity, because a schedule that collapses after two months damages the account more than a modest one that keeps going.
It depends on the platform. Organic reach on Facebook pages is minimal and has been for years. Discovery through TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts is genuinely available without spend, and half of US consumers now use TikTok to search for things.
So the answer is split: treat Facebook as mostly a paid and reputation channel, and treat the short video platforms as places where organic discovery still works if the content deserves it.
Through the effects it actually has. Branded search volume, because people who discover you on social then search your name. Enquiries that mention finding you there, which requires asking. Paid campaign cost per lead. And profile actions like website clicks and direction requests.
What we do not headline is followers, likes and engagement rate. They are in the report for reference because people want to see them, but they are not the measure of whether this is working.
In some categories yes, and it has become more normal: thirty eight percent of business owners now use TikTok creators for product promotion, up from twenty five percent in 2024. It works best where personal recommendation carries weight, which is consumer products, food, beauty, fitness and local services.
Start small and match the audience rather than the follower count. A creator with eight thousand engaged local followers usually outperforms one with two hundred thousand scattered ones, and costs a fraction as much.
Depends what the content is. Writing, editing, scheduling, graphics and campaign creative we handle. Photography and video of your actual premises, staff, products or work we usually cannot, and content shot by the business almost always performs better than stock anyway.
In practice most arrangements are a split: you capture raw material on a phone when it is convenient, we turn it into finished content. We set up a process for that so it does not become another thing on your list.
Only if your customers are. The data cuts both ways: sixty five percent of Gen Z have used TikTok to search, and only four percent of them prefer it to Google, a figure that halved in two years.
It is genuinely valuable for consumer businesses reaching under thirty fives, and frequently a waste of effort for B2B and older demographics. We would rather tell you to skip it than bill for content nobody in your market will see.
We will review your profiles, compare them with your competitors, and tell you honestly whether the effort is reaching anyone who could buy from you. You get the findings whether or not you work with us.
Get a Free Social ReviewI’m extremely satisfied! highlighting key areas for improvement like speed, keywords, and mobile optimization. After implementing the suggestions, my rankings and traffic improved.
