“Let me TikTok it.”
A few years ago, that sentence would have sounded ridiculous.
Now, it makes perfect sense.
If you’re looking for a restaurant, you might search TikTok to see what people are ordering. If you’re buying a new phone, you might head to YouTube for reviews. If you’re trying to fix something, Reddit might have a comment from someone who had exactly the same problem.
Google is still there, but it isn’t always the first place we go.
And that’s because we’re not necessarily looking for information anymore.
We’re looking for someone to show us.
We Don’t Always Want an Answer
Google is very good at giving you information.
But sometimes information isn’t what you’re after.
You don’t just want to know which restaurants are good. You want to see what the food looks like, what people are actually ordering and whether someone who has been there thinks it’s worth your money.
You don’t want a list of the “best skincare products”. You want to see someone with similar skin trying them.
You don’t want a description of a hotel. You want to see the room.
That’s where social media has an advantage.
People are increasingly searching for experiences, not just answers.
Social Media Shows You the Answer
Search engines traditionally give you a list of websites.
Social platforms can give you the answer itself.
Search “best coffee shops in Johannesburg” on TikTok and you might get a series of people walking into different cafés, showing what they ordered and giving their opinion.
Search for “how to make cinnamon rolls” on YouTube and you can watch someone actually make them.
Search for a new phone on Reddit and you can find people discussing what they like, what annoys them and whether they would buy it again.
You’re not just getting information.
You’re getting context.
And context is often what makes a recommendation useful.
People Trust People
There is another reason social search works.
It feels more personal.
A traditional search result might tell you that a restaurant has a five-star rating.
A person on TikTok might tell you:
“Don’t bother with the pasta. Get the burger.”
That is a very different kind of information.
It has personality.
It has an opinion.
It feels like advice from someone rather than information being presented to you.
That doesn’t necessarily make it more accurate. Social platforms are full of bad advice, sponsored recommendations and people confidently talking nonsense.
But it can make the information feel more relatable.
And that matters when you’re deciding what to buy, where to eat or what to try.
Younger Users Are Changing the Habit
This shift is particularly noticeable among younger internet users.
For people who have grown up with social media, searching for information inside an app they already use isn’t particularly unusual.
Why open Google, search for a restaurant, click through several websites and then look for photographs when you can search TikTok and immediately see people eating there?
The search journey is shorter.
The content is more visual.
And the recommendations are built around people rather than websites.
That doesn’t mean Google has suddenly become irrelevant.
It means search is no longer happening in one place.
Every Platform Has its Own Search Behaviour
The interesting thing is that people aren’t simply replacing Google with one new search engine.
Different platforms are becoming useful for different types of searches.
TikTok: Trends, recommendations, restaurants, travel, products and quick how-tos.
YouTube: Tutorials, reviews, explanations and longer demonstrations.
Reddit: Opinions, experiences, troubleshooting and brutally honest recommendations.
Instagram: Places, products, creators, fashion, food and visual inspiration.
The platform you choose increasingly depends on the type of answer you want.
If you want the opening hours of a restaurant, Google is probably still the obvious choice.
If you want to know whether the restaurant is actually worth visiting, you might check TikTok or Instagram.
The Game has Changed for Brands
For businesses, this shift means traditional SEO isn’t the whole story anymore.
Having a website that ranks on Google still matters.
But what happens when someone searches for your business on TikTok?
What comes up when they look for your product on YouTube?
Can someone find your brand through Instagram?
What are people saying about you on Reddit?
These are becoming part of the search journey too.
That means brands need to think beyond keywords and rankings.
They need content that answers questions where people are actually asking them.
A restaurant might need short videos showing its food.
A clothing brand might benefit from creators demonstrating how products look in real life.
A software company might need tutorials on YouTube.
A hotel might need user-generated content that shows what staying there actually feels like.
The content needs to work as both social media content and searchable information.
Search is Becoming More Human
Perhaps the biggest change is that search is becoming less about finding a website and more about finding an answer you trust.
Google isn’t disappearing.
Social media isn’t replacing traditional search.
Instead, we’re getting a much more fragmented search landscape where people move between platforms depending on what they want to know.
And that changes what it means to be “searchable”.
Being found online no longer necessarily means appearing at the top of Google.
Sometimes it means being the video someone watches before booking a restaurant.
The Reddit comment someone reads before buying a product.
The Instagram post someone saves before planning a trip.
Or the YouTube tutorial someone finds when they have no idea what they’re doing.
Search isn’t going away.
It’s just moving to wherever people are already looking.