You can find public social media posts using Google and other search engines (e.g. DuckDuckGo, Bing). This can help you find different results than you'd see if you're logged into these sites and searching within them.
How to find results from a single site: Facebook as an example
nigeria vaccines site:facebook.com
How to find results from multiple sites: in this example, Instagram, Tiktok, and Pinterest
railroad strike site:instagram.com | site:tiktok.com | site:pinterest.com
How to limit your results to specific kinds of content:
Find Instagram posts (instead of profiles):
railroad strike site:instagram.com/p
Find TikToks (instead of Discover pages w/ multiple videos):
railroad strike site:https://tiktok.com/@
Narrow your results by date:
Content posted before Nov 1, 2021:
"fly a drone" site:tiktok.com before:2021-11-01
Content posted after 2022:
"fly a drone" site:tiktok.com after:2022
Content posted between 11/1/21–3/1/22:
drone site:tiktok.com after:2021-10-31 before:2022-03-02
Use this tool to search across multiple social media platforms at once. (Just like when you're searching Google, you'll only get public posts in your results.)
Here's an example search:
You can use CrowdTangle to find out how widely shared a link has been on Facebook.
The total likes and shares reported by CrowdTangle include actions taken in private accounts. You'll need a Facebook account to use this Chrome extension.
Here's an example:
Alternative search engines:
Find popular blogs and sites by topic and type:
Search Google for the type of blog you're interested in (e.g. lifestyle, cooking), and add these two keywords to your search: feedspot popular
For example: lifestyle blogs feedspot popular
You'll get a list of popular blogs in this category.
