Social media is a key way people find brands today. An estimated 55% of consumers first discover new businesses on social media, and 68%use social to stay informed about products and services – making these channels a key part of your digital presence.

But while it's easy to see that social media helps you engage customers, it can be harder to figure out the link between your social strategy and your search strategy. Is there a link between local SEO and social media?

The short answer is: yes. The "how" and the "why" are a bit more complicated.

In today's world, the link between social media and local search ranking is indirect, but critical: optimizing your social channels and publishing content consistently expands your reach. It strengthens your visibility across different content sources, and that, in turn, could help you surface in search results when customers are looking for the products or services you provide. (We're already seeing Google integrate social posts from social channels like Facebook and Instagram into Google Business Profile. They're also testing out how they can bring Google Posts into search results.)

The bottom line? Social is becoming increasingly influential in search engine results. With that in mind, we'll walk through why (and how) to optimize your social media to positively influence your discoverability.