AI has increasingly become intertwined with our daily lives. From algorithms to grocery lists, there are almost endless possibilities for what we can do with AI. How can AI be used in marketing?
D&A’s Fall Social Media Intern, Ahuva, created her capstone project to show the benefits of AI in social media marketing, the drawbacks, and how to balance the two.
Best Practices for Using AI
Captions and Copy
It is best to utilize your original work in this process; however, when it is necessary to use AI to write copy, it is important to be as specific as possible in your prompt. Narrow down the audience you want to reach and specify details about your brand voice and identity.
For example, the prompt: “Create a Facebook caption advertising senior living care” generated the copy: “Experience compassionate senior living where comfort, support, and connection come first. Schedule a tour today and discover a place that truly feels like home.”
However, the prompt: “Create a Facebook caption targeting the sandwich generation to advertise help finding the right memory care options in senior living facilities.” Gave us: “Caring for aging parents while raising your own family is a lot to carry—but you don’t have to navigate memory care alone. Let us help you find the senior living options that offer safety, compassion, and peace of mind for everyone you love.”
Between these two captions, the second is more detailed and fits the brand identity better. With this strategy, you can also specify if the brand uses emojis and emdashes to ensure a consistent and authentic voice on social media.
When possible, you should avoid using AI to create original copy; instead, try writing your own copy and inputting it into AI to get alternative captions for different platforms to diversify your content. This enables you to quickly create multiple pieces of content from one original work.
Photo Editing
When using AI to edit photos and create graphics, it is beneficial to minimize the amount of AI that is used to maintain a realistic appearance. Being strategic in your delegation of when to use AI is the best solution for this. Ask yourself: Is this a job better suited for a graphic designer? Can the social media team make the graphic in Canva?
Providing specific instructions is also best practice when using AI to edit photos. For example, when creating our haunted mansion carousel, we tried two prompts:
“Add a spooky Halloween theme to this image.”
“Add a dark sky with realistic-looking ghosts on the path and in the lower middle window.”
The second, more specific prompt fit the goals of Devaney’s haunted mansion series more closely and saved time editing all of the photos used.
Information Sharing
AI can store and even sell the information you input. To protect your clients, do not input sensitive information without disclosure and permission first.
Fact Checking
Auditing the accuracy of AI responses, especially with long-form content or content that involves statistics and data, is extremely important. Just like people, AI can be wrong, and it is necessary to fact-check the information it gives you.
AI Platforms for Social Media Management
1. Gemini
Gemini can be used to write copy, generate content, edit photos, and plan posts. It offers free options with limited capabilities as well as a paid subscription plan.
2. Contenda
Contenda can turn videos into blogs, analyze trends, and provide insight into top-performing content for your niche. It requires a subscription after the free trial.
3. Lately
Lately repurposes long-form content into social media posts. This can be used to turn blogs and videos into short-form content. Lately offers a subscription after the free trial.
4. MarketMuse
MarketMuse optimizes the relevance and reach of content by finding competitor weaknesses and providing insights for your brand. It requires a subscription after the free trial.
5. Jasper
Jasper can create copy for a variety of platforms while customizing tone and voice. Jasper offers a free trial followed by a paid subscription.
6. Flick
Flick plans content and researches hashtags. It can also repurpose long-form content into social media posts. Flick offers paid plans.
Benefits of Using AI
Content Creation Efficiency
Using AI streamlines the content creation process, saving time on copy and graphics. By inputting your own copy and asking AI for alternatives, you can create different copy for each platform and diversify what is being posted between Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. AI can also quickly edit images, saving time that might have otherwise been spent on Canva.
Fresh Perspective
With access to almost unlimited information, data, and content, AI can provide us with a unique perspective for brainstorming. Without AI, these insights would not normally be as accessible to us.
Streamlined Social Listening
AI can also streamline social listening and trend spotting. AI can search and analyze almost everything that is online—from social media content to websites, in a matter of minutes. That level of social listening could take us weeks to complete. Using AI for social listening can efficiently speed up the process and help us predict trends before they happen.
Drawbacks of Using AI
Environmental Impact
AI has a significant environmental impact, consuming 500ml of water per 10-50 written responses. AI data centers require fresh water for their cooling systems as well as immense amounts of energy. These data centers are ranked 11th in the world for how much power they consume. This ranks data centers between the countries of Saudi Arabia and France for power usage.
Lack of Connection
When AI is overused, it can create a lack of human touch and make content seem robotic. This deprives social media managers of making real connections with their audience. The core of social media marketing is cultivating a relationship with your audience, which AI can take away.
Privacy Concerns
AI will store client information when we use it to write copy, edit photos, or analyze data. This creates an added need for disclaimers, transparency, and permission between you and your clients.
Work Displacement
If we become too dependent on AI, it could start to replace real people and their work. Social media is about real people and requires real people to run. While AI can be a helpful tool, social media teams provide the human connection that audiences on social media need.
How D&A Finds the Balance
The best way to use AI is to augment, not replace the work of real people. By balancing the benefits and drawbacks of AI, you can maximize your reach, streamline the process, and maintain that human touch that makes social media what it is.