Social media is a powerful way to connect and engage with your target audience to promote your brand. As any digital marketer will tell you – the social media lifecycle has a lot of moving parts. From planning, content creation and publishing, to interacting, social listening and data analysis, it is a multi-faceted marketing method that gets simplified well beyond its actuality.
In organizations with limited social budgets, social media responsibilities often fall to one or two overloaded marketing (or sales, or administrative, or insert other functional area) team members. For them, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a gamechanger.
While the advent of generative AI has some content creators nervous, the reality is that AI isn’t about replacing human creativity. It’s about augmenting and enhancing capabilities. Used correctly, it is an extremely useful addition to your arsenal of marketing tools. By harnessing the power of AI, social media specialists can unlock new levels of efficiency, creativity, and engagement.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Even the best AI is no good without a well-thought-out strategy and implementation plan. We’re sharing our favorite tips on how to efficiently execute each stage of your social media cycle using AI as your virtual workhorse.
Planning
First things first – get organized. Every social media creator needs a master social planner. Mapping out annual and monthly calendars in advance is key to preventing overwhelm and identifying campaigns based on seasonality or other timely events is important to your business. Spreadsheets are a great way to contain multiple planning stages in a single file. Creating a shared planner on Google Drive, SmartSheet, or a specialized social media management platform is encouraged to streamline collaboration, assignments and approvals.
- AI Assist
Use Google Workspace’s Duet AI feature to generate project plans in Google Sheets.
Content Creation
One of the most exciting applications of AI in social media is content creation. AI-powered tools can generate text, images, and even videos, helping marketers and content creators overcome creative blocks, enhance productivity, and maintain a consistent and visually appealing brand identity. By harnessing these capabilities, creators can focus on refining their message rather than grappling with a blank page and blinking cursor.
It’s important to note that while AI aims to mimic natural language for written content and create accurate visuals based on human-directed prompts, it’s not a perfect process. Use AI as your starting point and then carefully edit the content to ensure your captions and graphics look and feel natural.
AI can also help diversify your social content mix (hint: your posts shouldn’t all be promotional!) and fill any gaps in your calendar with intelligent content curation. Use it to find and analyze large volumes of content, identify the most relevant topics in your industry, and help you select the most valuable content to share with your audience.
AI Assist
– Use ChatGPT to generate ideas for social media campaigns, create lists of industry-related national days to fill content gaps, and write first-draft captions. As already mentioned, be sure to edit captions to humanize and personalize.
– Check out BuzzSumo for content curation. Explore trends and get real-time recommendations for content related to your industry. Filters allow you hone in on specific locations, timeframes and topics for the best results.
– Rely on Canva for existing image sourcing, editing, and resizing and new image creation with their Magic Studio tools. A fun example of Canva image generation using the prompt, “two cute dogs wearing sunglasses waterskiing on Lake Tahoe” is our featured photo for this blog.
Publishing
Consistency is key in social media marketing. AI tools can automate publishing, ensuring that businesses maintain a regular and engaging social presence. Advanced scheduling tools analyze user activity patterns to identify the optimal times for posting content, maximizing visibility and engagement. This automation not only saves time but also ensures that businesses reach their audience when they are most active.
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Native platforms or social media management tools like Hootsuite, Buffer or Sprout Social (especially useful if you are publishing to more than one platform) are great for advanced scheduling of posts at optimal times.
Interactions
Social media is an invaluable customer service tool you can use to build brand loyalty. It is capable of connecting you to your audience on a personal level.
Addressing comments and DMs in a timely manner is critical to maintaining a reputation as a customer-centric brand. As brand awareness grows, so do interactions. This can put a strain on staffing. To solve for this, use AI chatbots to respond to standard inquiries, provide product recommendations, and even assist with the purchase process.
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Most native platforms and social media management tools like Hootsuite offer saved replies, auto-responses, and chatbot capabilities.
Social Sentiment
Understanding how customers perceive a brand is crucial for shaping marketing strategies. AI-driven social listening and analysis tools can assess social media conversations and determine the sentiment behind user comments and mentions. This information can help businesses gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns, identify areas for improvement, get ahead of negative feedback, and maintain a positive online reputation.
- AI Assist
Talkwalker provides a comprehensive view of online and social conversations about your brand, competitors, and industry. Their “Quick Search” tool gauges sentiment by analyzing mentions, comments, engagements, and other data. Predictive alerts allow businesses to proactively address challenges, mitigate risks, and capitalize on emerging trends.
Analytics
Social media platforms generate massive amounts of data. AI tools can analyze this data to provide valuable insights, including the best times to publish, top-performing posts, ideal content formats, and even which hashtags to use. They can delve into the nitty-gritty details of your audience’s behavior, offering information on click-through rates, conversion metrics, and user demographics. By leveraging AI-driven analytics, businesses can fine-tune their social media marketing strategies to ensure maximum ROI.
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Buffer provides simple, straightforward reporting that is easy to digest; Sprout Social is used when more extensive analysis and deep insights are needed, including interactive profile performance (isolated or across networks), hashtag tracking, and post, tag and competitor reports.
As technology continues to evolve, one thing is clear: the fusion of human ingenuity and artificial intelligence holds the key to unlocking success in social media marketing. Integrating AI into social media marketing strategies is necessary to stay relevant in the ever-changing digital landscape. It’s important for creators to embrace AI’s ability to augment a brand’s social media efforts and learn how to manipulate it for best results. With the right prompts, AI can become a social media specialist’s right-hand man, increasing efficiency and productivity and, ultimately, saving businesses time and money.
This blog was written by Erin Dalton, an Empirical marketing specialist who is known for creating content that gets noticed. She accomplishes this by tapping into her tactical writing and editing skills to create memorable content that connects both B2B and B2C brands to their target audiences. Be sure to connect with her on LinkedIn.
The Empirical team can drive your social media efforts to help meet your business objectives! Connect with us (hello@thinkempirical.com; (610) 994-1139) to learn how our marketing team can build brand awareness, increase website traffic, generate leads, and accomplish so much more for your organization!
