can I use a contact cleaner to clean the headphone jack on my mid 2012 macbook pro 13 inch

The traditional way of dealing with the mechanical portion of the headphone jack is to plug and unplug a dozen times, then test again. Anger at it not working properly sometimes helps you develop the required roughness.

If @Grant's suggestion does not work, then please explain the reason for wanting to clean the jack. I know the older laptops were known for having a bad headphone jack which was caused by the one contact inside the jack shorting to the grounded casing. The contact was just a thin piece of spring metal which became bent after some use. It is possible to adjust this contact, but it is very tricky & difficult due to the narrow opening, limited lighting and access. The symptom presents itself as macOS not seeing the internal speakers because the Mac thinks a pair of headphones are connected due to shorted contact. When playing audio, the jack will show a red light inside it.

Sometimes @Grant's trick will work to resolve this issue, but most times it will not.

Fortunately later model Macs utilize a ball bearing for a contact which is much more reliable.