Yes, but the honest answer depends on what you mean by “social media SEO.” The phrase covers two different ideas, and a good SEO company will be clear about which one it can actually influence. Social media activity does not directly raise your Google rankings, yet it can support your search visibility in several real, indirect ways. An SEO company can help with those indirect connections. Running your day-to-day social media marketing is usually a separate discipline.
Social signals are not a direct ranking factor
Google has stated for years that likes, shares, comments, and follower counts are not part of its ranking algorithm. The reasoning is practical. Google cannot reliably crawl all social platform data, and engagement numbers are easy to manipulate, so they make poor quality signals. If an SEO company tells you that buying followers or chasing shares will lift your rankings, treat that as a warning sign. It is not how Google works.
So when someone promises “social media SEO” as a way to climb the rankings through social engagement alone, the promise does not hold up. The value of social media for search is real, but it is indirect.
What an SEO company can actually do
There are several places where social media and SEO genuinely overlap, and these are areas where an SEO company can help.
Content distribution. When content gets seen by more people on social platforms, it has a better chance of earning links from other websites and being mentioned elsewhere. Those editorial links, not the social shares themselves, are what can influence rankings. An SEO company can help shape content so it is worth sharing and worth linking to.
Branded search. As more people discover your brand through social media, more of them search for your business by name in Google. A rising volume of branded searches is a healthy signal of real interest, and it tends to support your overall search presence.
Profiles that rank for your name. Your profiles on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube often appear on the first page of Google when someone searches for your business. An SEO company can make sure those profiles are complete, consistent with your website, and use accurate business information, so the results people see reflect your brand well.
Social platforms as search engines. Many users now search directly inside YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, and similar platforms, and AI search tools sometimes pull from public posts and discussions. Optimizing the titles, descriptions, and text on that content is a form of search optimization. Some SEO companies offer this; others do not. Ask before you assume.
Local SEO. Accurate, consistent business details across your social profiles support local search by reinforcing your name, address, and phone number across the web.
Where social marketing is a separate job
Creating a content calendar, designing posts, writing captions, replying to comments and messages, building a community, and running paid social ad campaigns are social media marketing tasks. They require different skills and tools than SEO. Some agencies offer both services, but they are not the same work, and an SEO specialist is not automatically a social media manager. If you need active social media management, confirm it is genuinely in scope rather than assuming it comes bundled with SEO.
Questions to ask
Before hiring, ask the company to explain in plain terms how it sees social media affecting your SEO. A trustworthy answer will mention indirect benefits like distribution, links, and branded search, and will not claim that social signals directly raise rankings. Ask whether they handle social profile optimization, content optimization for platforms like YouTube, or only website SEO. Ask whether social media posting and ad management are included or quoted separately.
The short version: an SEO company can help you use social media in ways that support search visibility, and it can optimize the search-relevant parts of your social presence. It cannot turn social engagement into direct ranking gains, and full social media marketing is a service you should confirm separately rather than expect by default.