4 Ways AI In Social Media is Changing The Landscape For Brands Online

Throughout history, technological advancements have been the catalysts for epic transformation. We’re now seeing this pattern play out in real time as Artificial Intelligence (AI) is integrated into more business areas every single day.

AI has had a particularly strong impact in the digital world. The combination of AI tools and social media has forever changed the content creation process and continues to be a strong influence in the development of new marketing tactics to target specific audiences. Understanding how your business can take advantage of this can set you up for success.

Benefits of AI in Social Media

Not every business has jumped at the opportunity to use AI in their day-to-day social media management. However, adoption is on the rise as businesses and other users report seeing several distinct benefits of social media AI, including:

Personalized Content Recommendations

AI uses advanced algorithms and machine learning to recognize patterns in data and predict behavior. When applied to social media, AI can analyze past online behavior (likes, shares, views, comments, captions, etc.) to identify what types of content the user interacts with most. This step helps it understand what content a user will find most valuable. Using those findings, AI can then rank each social media post or video and predict how likely the user is to find that content relevant. The best AI tools can then give recommendations for the highest-ranking content most similar to historically well-performing content for each user, creating a hyper-personalized, AI-generated experience.

Enhanced User Experience

AI has made huge waves in the social media customer service world by enhancing social listening and the customer experience with AI-powered tools like chatbots. Chatbots are one of the best AI tools because they can instantly and independently answer user questions and help troubleshoot problems, providing better customer service experiences. Plus, chatbots can be available 24/7 to assist customers.

Additionally, AI tools with advanced image-recognition software can learn to automatically recognize and tag images or videos with greater accuracy. This type of AI software can be used to catch fraudulent accounts and disable them before they harm your business. It also can help police content throughout the platform by using AI to recognize and tag harmful or dangerous content so it can be removed quickly.

Improved Ad Targeting

Ads are only effective if they’re seen by the right audience. With AI’s ability to mine key insights about user interests based on past online behaviors, it can identify which types of ads will most appeal to each user. Businesses can then use that information to target their key audiences more effectively on social media so they have a better ROI (return on investment). It also benefits users because they’re not seeing ads for products and services that are completely irrelevant to them, which makes their overall experience on the platform better.

Insights for Businesses and Marketers

AI’s ability to find key insights about user preferences and interests can also be applied to a business’s overall social media strategy. Using AI, businesses can easily compare past social media management efforts to identify what types of social media posts an audience engages with most and even when the optimal time is for publishing new content. AI can also quickly compare users and their histories to identify common demographic information or other key metrics that businesses might not have known or noticed otherwise. These insights can all be used to build a more effective AI marketing strategy capable of delivering higher levels of personalization than traditional marketing methods.

AI in Content Creation for Social Media

AI is still a relatively new technology, but it has great potential to automate portions of the content creation process to help creators generate ideas and develop personalized content faster. Because it’s so new, creators are still experimenting and trying to learn where AI will best fit into their current content creation processes and what the best AI tools are. So far, AI has been most beneficial in two areas—content idea generation and content editing.

Automated Content Generation

Beyond its ability to identify key insights that help creators tailor their content ideas to a specific audience, AI tools can also help overcome writer’s block and spark creativity. AI-powered software can accept a written or verbal prompt and return generated images and text. These AI-generated pieces can often be the springboard for creative thinking and new content ideas and also help creators make mockups of potential ads faster. In some cases, the AI-generated content can even be lightly edited using AI tools and then published as official company content.

AI-Driven Editing Tools

The human eye has great attention to detail, but it’s still nowhere near as accurate as AI. AI-powered editing tools can be trained to review content for consistency and alignment with brand guidelines to ensure your content is consistent across platforms. AI has also been used to enhance the user-friendliness of editing tools, making it easier for anyone, regardless of skill level, to create and edit professional-looking content.

AI’s Impact on the Way People See Content in Social Media

Popular social media companies like Meta are already using social media AI on platforms like Facebook and Instagram in a way that fundamentally changes how users see content. These platforms analyze and track what users spend their time on using an AI algorithm, then use that information to predict how valuable an ad or other social media post will be to that user. Social media AI algorithms are designed to show the most valuable content first.

In doing so, they create a curated feed of personalized posts and relevant sponsored ads that are more likely to draw engagement from users. Offering this individualized social media feed tailored to the user and their current interests makes the social media platform more enjoyable, so users are naturally more inclined to spend more time on it.

With the increased interest in AI, Meta is now making it easier for users to actively participate in helping the social media AI algorithm learn their interests faster. Facebook has “Show more” and “Show less” buttons so users can give feedback on a recommended post. Instagram now has an “Interested” button so users can highlight reels they found most engaging. Tools like this enable users to facilitate faster AI learning so their feeds become more relevant in a shorter amount of time.

AI in Marketing and Advertising

With AI algorithms changing the foundation of how users view content on social media, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to understand AI so they can effectively advertise on social media. To stay competitive, you not only need to learn how AI works but also implement it in your social media marketing and management strategies. Here are four of the biggest ways companies can use AI in social media marketing:

1. Targeted Advertising

More businesses are starting to embrace AI in advertising because it enables them to hyper-target specific audiences. With the platform algorithm already trying to match users up with the most relevant ads, businesses can take advantage of the AI social media algorithm’s matching capabilities and target smaller groups within a larger target market.

2. Performance Tracking

AI makes it easy to quickly track and compare ad performance across platforms so businesses know what types of ads are working well. Some AI tools can even be used to auto-generate new ad variations to help facilitate A/B testing in social media posts.

3. Automation and Optimization

AI marketing automation tools help businesses save time by automating repetitive tasks, like note-taking, so marketing teams can operate more efficiently. AI-powered marketing tools can also be used to analyze current practices and find areas for improvement or make suggestions for optimization.

4. Influencer Partnerships

A good influencer partnership can do wonders for a business’s social media marketing efforts. AI can be used to compare and contrast data points about potential influencers to help you narrow down which one would be the best fit for your business.

AI in Marketing Analytics

One of the biggest areas of impact for social media AI is within marketing analytics. AI-powered tools have the power to augment data collection and analysis in ways we’ve never seen before, enabling business owners to make data-driven decisions about their future marketing goals and strategies.

Data Collection and Analysis

AI has nearly infinite data-processing capabilities. Large datasets that used to take a significant amount of manpower to review can be analyzed in seconds to provide summaries and key insights for marketers. Additionally, AI doesn’t have the same fallibility as humans, which means fewer errors and greater accuracy. AI also makes it easier to perform customer segmentation in less time, which helps businesses develop better marketing strategies while lowering operational costs.

Predictive Analytics

Using the data it’s analyzing, AI can provide enhanced predictive analytics. Its superior pattern recognition skills enable it to compare historical data to current market trends and formulate the most likely outcome. Businesses can proactively develop plans and strategies for potential shifts in the market or consumer behavior based on this knowledge instead of trying to respond to these changes after the fact. AI-powered predictive analytics helps them optimize inventory and be more prepared to handle swings in the market.

Enhancing Decision-Making

Good data is the key to good decision-making. With the enhanced analytical power of AI, business owners can be more informed about current trends and potential storms ahead. These insights enable them to make better decisions about how to use AI in social media strategies as well as other aspects of the business. More advanced AI tools can even use key insights and predictive data to suggest what actions the business should take to achieve a specific outcome.

Integrate AI in Social Media with Podium

Together, social media and AI tools have the power to do amazing work. However, the more separated your AI tools are, the more resources are required to manage them. That’s why it’s vital you choose a reliable, well-integrated partner like Podium that can consolidate all of your channels into one easy-to-use inbox.

Podium’s Instagram integration brings all of your Instagram messages, Story replies, comments, and mentions straight into your Podium Inbox so you can manage and respond to them and other platform messages all in one place. Consolidating your channels ensures smooth operations for your team and fast communication with your customers. The best part is that this integration is included for free with all Podium packages. Set up the Podium Instagram integration today!