The New Search Frontier: Consumers Looking Beyond Google

Having a search engine–agnostic strategy is more critical than ever.

Web search is no longer a single-channel activity but a multi-modal behavior spanning search engines, social media, retail platforms, and AI-powered tools. While SEO remains a cornerstone of visibility, brands seeking to make an impact will have to leverage social media platforms and optimize content for generative AI platforms to make a true impact and leave lasting impressions for their prospective customers.

Brands must create connected, AI-friendly repositories of information across channels that ensure relevance and drive consumers to the right places. Accuracy and discoverability across these evolving touchpoints are a must—evaluating the need for clear, universal brand identity and value propositions to customers.

Other Platforms in the Search Spotlight:

Consumers are leveraging e-commerce platforms, YouTube, social media, and generative AI to help drive their online information journey. Your SEO plan must be optimized for a search engine–agnostic approach.

Influencer-led Search

Younger consumers in particular are leveraging social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to help with product searches and questions. Nearly 45% of Gen Z report trusting a real person for information versus a website or text. The rise of influencer-driven SEO means having an influencer strategy for your brand is more important than ever.

Stop tracking trends. Start preparing.

Digital health isn’t evolving in neat, trackable lines.

It’s shifting through collisions: AI, platforms, policy, HCP and consumer behavior, all compounding at once.

THE EDIT isn’t a trend report.
It’s how Propeller makes sense of the forces that are converging and what that means for healthcare brands now.

As a frontier firm and fully AI-enabled health agency, Propeller operates inside these shifts as they happen
building, testing, and deploying AI-enabled strategies in real time.

This is where marketers see what’s coming, and what to do about it.

Decode What’s Next