Artificial intelligence’s role in social media is expanding. AI has the power to harness text, image, audio and video uses, introducing opportunities for content creation, data analysis and more. Along with these benefits comes serious concerns about privacy and safety.
3 Ways AI Can Support Social Media Marketing
- Marketers can enter a topic into an AI platform to generate a list of post ideas.
- AI can write social media copy and create images.
- Marketers can spend more time on social media strategy.
As B2B organizations explore opportunities to use AI, they must keep in mind the risks and understand how to protect their brand. How can AI support businesses’ social media objectives, while avoiding pitfalls both obvious and hidden? A closer look at the advantages and disadvantages is needed.
How AI Can Help With Social Media Content Creation
There are several areas in social media where AI can make a positive impact. The first is content creation. Sourcing content can be a time-consuming challenge for social media professionals, especially those who face tasks beyond updating their daily content calendars. Marketers can enter a topic into an AI platform to generate a list of post ideas, which can help reduce the brainstorming sessions and meetings often required to create a social media campaign. Once ideas are solidified, AI can support marketers with tasks like writing copy to creating images. Time previously spent on content creation can be redirected to social media strategizing.
Give AI Generated Copy the Human Touch
While AI can help social media marketers save time, businesses must keep in mind their audience’s desire for authentic content. Sixty-two percent of consumers say they are less likely to engage with and trust content if they know it was created by an AI application, according to a Hootsuite trend report. With speed and convenience can come inaccuracy and misinformation.
AI-generated copy can also come across as detached or lacking in personality. AI doesn’t consider nuances or use expressions the way human writers might. Marketers can develop a more refined product by editing AI-written copy. Editing might include changing words that are too formal, such as “utilize” to “use,” or deleting sentences that repeat points already made. Providing AI with writing samples or more specific prompts can also help it learn your brand’s voice better.
Checking brand voice, facts and for plagiarism before publishing any content, social media or otherwise, is a critical step that requires the human touch.
Risks With Using AI in Social Media
AI can be immensely helpful for social media professionals, however, it also comes with concerns. Privacy is one of the more apparent risks. AI can help develop personalized recommendations for content, however, it’s able to do so because it analyzes user data.
This raises the question: how secure is it to use AI? Another issue is the likelihood of spreading misinformation and plagiarized content. AI tools might provide out of date or incorrect information, therefore, fact-checking is crucial. AI copy might appear well-written, but it could also be littered with bias and repetitive use of words or phrases. To stay ahead of the AI concerns, social media marketers need to review AI content before pressing post, be honest with consumers about using AI and stay up to date on the latest AI technologies and regulations.
AI Laws and Regulations
There is no copyright protection for works created by non-humans. However, AI systems must first learn from humans to produce an output. What does this mean in the eyes of the law? The government and courts are still sorting that out.
Several states have enacted bills that primarily address two concerns: data privacy and accountability. To be proactive instead of reactive, brands and creators should frequently look for their work in data sets through automated search tools. AI can only produce images and text because it’s been trained with real, and often copyrighted, work. For example, the Atlantic revealed Meta used a data set called Books3, which contained more than 170,000 pirated and copyrighted books, to train its large language model (LLM). Businesses and customers in the products and services industry who use AI should have agreements that include disclosures to help make certain intellectual property rights are understood and protected.
These are only some of the opportunities for AI in social media, and they will continue to grow as technology does. While AI can help save time and money, it should still be viewed as an adjunct tool and not a permanent solution. If businesses aren’t transparent about their AI use with consumers, trust might waver. Marketers and social media professionals alike must work smarter than AI by developing policies for when and where to use it.
