Introduction
Social media is an important part of any company’s marketing strategy, and in the past decade, keeping a reliable, reputable social media presence has been one of the key components of converting leads into loyal customers. However, social media maintenance isn’t always the most important element of advertising for a growing company. So much goes into existing in the business world that posting quality content on a regular basis can go by the wayside.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. AI is making waves when it comes to succeeding on social media as a business. Technologies are constantly developing in ways that make life easier for consumers. However, AI developments are enhancing marketing strategies for businesses as well. Read on to learn more about AI.
The Basics of AI
Artificial intelligence, or AI, was once viewed as a futuristic technological development that wouldn’t come to fruition for another few decades, but AI is already a reality. Programs that enable machines to learn based on the information they receive are already an important component of business processes, especially those that are internet-based.
This technological innovation is already reshaping the way that businesses promote their content online. Business owners and marketing managers are using AI to enhance marketing strategies, expand brand awareness, and enable more meaningful connections with target audiences.
Social media is a massively important tool for companies when it comes to marketing products and services. As such, smart business owners are constantly looking for new and effective ways to optimize their social media endeavors. AI is proving quite valuable in this effort, and we’ll explain how throughout this article.
Let’s take a look at five ways that AI is influencing the way businesses exist on social media.
#1- Automating Functions
One of the biggest benefits artificial intelligence presents is its ability to automate certain tasks that would otherwise take up valuable time during a company’s work schedule. With the right program and information used to supplement machine learning, AI can create compelling content all on its own. Furthermore, it can manage social media content in the following ways.
- Drafting: AI programs can study past pieces of content to get a feel for the tone, mood, and verbiage that businesses commonly use in their ad content. From there, the program can create ads and social media posts by itself.
- Scheduling: Once the program has drafted posts or ads that fit the company’s style, it can schedule the posts or ads to be submitted to the public at times when they’ve got the best chance of being seen by as many people as possible.
- Management: Using AI tools to manage a company’s social media posting schedule not only frees the marketing team to focus on more human-focused work, but the use of these tools can also help businesses develop a presence based on consistent, reliable posting.
- Monitoring: Monitoring and analyzing the results of posts and ad content enables AI tools to learn more about what garners positive reactions and what doesn’t. By monitoring post and ad performance, AI can use data to create ads and posts with similar success rates.
- Machine Learning: The more an AI program is used, the more it adapts. While at the beginning, AI tools might need significant input in order to create the right type of content, this time investment will more than pay off thanks to machine learning.
#2- Content Filtering
While social media platforms have their own form of security and surveillance in place to protect users, a company’s AI tools can provide an additional layer of safety when it comes to users surfing the web. Consumers tend to trust brands that make efforts to look out for them, and if business owners want to establish a positive reputation, looking out for the safety of their customers is a great way to do it.
AI programs can filter content, detect malicious activity, and take steps to create a safer, more appropriate landscape for audiences by performing the following tasks.
- Blocking Inappropriate Content: AI programs can scour social media platforms in order to pick up on examples of which content is appropriate and which isn’t. Social media platforms see millions of interactions between users each day and it’s nearly impossible for human workers to catch every submission of inappropriate content. AI, however, doesn’t fall victim to human error. These tools can monitor millions of posts and can easily eliminate pieces of inappropriate content that may otherwise slip through the cracks.
- Bot Surveillance: While some bots are easy to sniff out, others are a little more sophisticated. AI programs can pinpoint bot activity among a myriad of legitimate posts by human users, though. As such, these programs can keep an eye on the bots so that they don’t have opportunities to scam audiences or add false information to data collection tools.
- Fighting Malicious Attacks: Scammers treat social media platforms as a playground, and they use the entire landscape to scope out vulnerable people to hurt. Due to the superior learning capabilities of AI tools, though, scammers have a harder time exploiting targets. By using an AI program on social media, businesses can detect fraudulent activity, report scammers, and protect audience members from losing money or personal information.
- Moderation: AI can moderate comment sections, public posts, and forums in real time. As such, moderation efforts can become more successful than ever before. These tools can catch harmful or dangerous posts and take action against them before the damage is done.
#3- Enhancing User Experience
Social media is designed to allow users to connect with family, friends, and people with similar interests as their own. However, due to the sheer amount of content and the number of users who are active at any given time, it can be hard to accomplish this task.
Users don’t want to have to sift through mountains of information they don’t care about in order to find what appeals to them. AI helps with this task as well, as these programs can organize content and make it visible to the right users. Social media’s AI features work to improve user experiences and foster beneficial relationships between customers and businesses. This enhancement can take place in the following ways.
- Communication: AI makes it easier for users to contact businesses, either by direct messaging the team or commenting on posts. Further, AI brings users with similar interests together so that they can discuss topics that matter to them. When these topics relate to products and services, they can help generate organic traffic to companies and improve the brand’s reputation.
- Influencer Targeting: Influencers are all over the internet, and for some, that’s incredibly annoying. For others, though, the existence of people who promote ideas and lifestyles they’re interested in is a blessing. Through AI, both audiences and influencers benefit because these programs enable effective audience targeting, essentially matching audiences and influencers who share the same interests, goals, careers, and various other features.
- Analytics: Analytics have become a crucial staple in online business performance measurements. Looking at the data collected and analyzed is important for growing companies as the reports generated show marketing professionals what’s working and what isn’t. AI can read these reports and pull behaviors from them. For example, if a specific post goes viral, the program will look at the time, date, content, and various other details of the piece to determine whether the success can be replicated.
- Increased Engagement: In several ways, AI can copy the behaviors of human workers so realistically that audience members won’t know that they’re not engaging with a person. These sophisticated programs can be used to increase engagement levels of audience members by reaching out to them and replying to their comments within reasonable time limits. Making audience members feel heard and seen is a big part of developing a stellar reputation.
#4- Cost Savings
On top of making it easier than ever to develop brand recognition and create positive associations with company names, social media and AI go hand in hand to reduce marketing and advertising costs for businesses. In the recent past, human workers had to take care of every aspect of marketing and advertising, which made ad campaigns and customer support tasks quite expensive for smaller businesses.
Using AI helps reduce some of those costs without reducing quality. The following methods make it easier for businesses with limited budgets to grow, produce compelling marketing content, and save money while making a big impact.
- Content Generation: As mentioned above, AI programs can learn how to generate content based on examples the program receives. In addition to opening schedules and making it easier for marketing professionals to focus their efforts on truly demanding work, AI content generation saves money. Technology doesn’t require a salary, and the content that AI programs come up with doesn’t have to cost companies any money beyond the AI’s service fee.
- Audience Targeting: One of the highest costs associated with marketing ad content is the financial waste that comes with an ad that doesn’t receive any engagement. The ads still cost money to create and publish, and when nobody sees them, the cost doesn’t benefit the company’s growth. With AI programs, not only does technology create compelling content, but it targets audiences that will actually find the ads helpful.
- Ad Quality: We’ve all seen those low-effort text-only ads online that implore us to visit a certain page or buy a specific product. Most of the time we ignore those ads, and for good reason. They don’t call to us. They don’t seem to appeal to us in any way, so why should we spend our time viewing something the creator seemingly couldn’t care less about?
AI-generated ads can produce ads that actually garner positive attention and encourage target audiences to click on them. And they accomplish this feat at no extra cost.
#5- Marketing Optimization
Targeting audiences with social media posts and relevant ad content is only half of the equation when it comes to growing a business. Once business owners attract customers, providing excellent service is a must. AI can assist with this part of the conversion process as well, as once potential customers reach out to companies with questions, comments, or the desire to make a purchase, AI can nurture them effectively.
- Chatbots: Chatbots can be programmed to answer questions or help customers make a purchase at any time of the day or night. By using these programs, companies can ensure that no potential customer slips through the cracks. These chatbots can provide excellent customer service and support, so the busy schedules that marketing professionals have to maintain will never get in the way of securing a sale again.
- Ideal Response Times: Ideally, businesses should respond to customer inquiries within a couple of minutes, but with a human-only crew, that’s not always possible. It is with AI, though. Using social media’s AI capabilities can ensure that every inquiry is answered before the lead grows impatient and decided to shop with another company.
- Organized Online Presence: Having a reliable schedule is essential when it comes to maintaining a great social media presence. However, when a company is too busy to post content at the same time every week, keeping up with that presence is difficult. Social media algorithms promote accounts that maintain consistent activity, so if a company is struggling to get weekly posts completed on time, let an AI program take care of that. A reliable schedule will keep a business’s social media presence front and center, especially when compared with businesses that post inconsistent content.
Whether you’re a business owner or marketing professional, social media is a tool you need to embrace. Whether you’re a massive corporation or a small business, social media is one of the many keys you’ll need in order to grow your audience and customer base. If this article has sparked your interest, follow Whop for more news and information on artificial intelligence and how the emergence of new programs and tools can help skyrocket your success.