Photo by Pavel Danilyuk

“The toothpaste will never go back into the tube,” said Jon Leland, Media Innovator & Creativity Catalyst, during NISM’s Empowering AI Trends for Social Media Marketing webinar. Regarding his toothpaste statement, he also mentioned that “AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will,” and highlighted the fact that AI is not going anywhere anytime soon, and will only become increasingly more important as time goes on. 

 

The Reality: AI is a Skill, Not a Threat! 

Many once believed–and some still do believe–that AI is here to replace us in our jobs, whether it’s social media marketing, content creation, or blogging for a company’s website. I used to believe that, too. But in her article, “AI won’t replace us: it needs humans more than we need it,” Leslie Schultz explains that AI is nowhere near replacing humans, as it needs the human touch to flourish. 

Think of the early days of the internet–people feared that technological advancements would eliminate the need for human input. Fast-forward to today, and as Leslie reminds us, the internet didn’t eliminate the need for humans–it certainly enhanced the way we live our lives. I believe that AI is following a similar path. We need time to get familiar with this amazing tool, not fear it.

 

Ways Social Media Marketers Can Use AI 

If you weren’t already aware, there are many AI tools being used on marketing teams every day. Let’s take a look at 3 different ways AI could be used on your team.

• Social Media Listening: Sprout Social highlights how AI can significantly boost your team’s productivity. Essentially, AI algorithms use something called aspect-clustering, which helps find useful information from your social listening metrics, enabling real-time analysis of millions of data points. 

• Content Creation: Keep getting stuck between a rock and a hard place when generating content ideas for your company? AI can help with that! According to Esther Van den Eynde’s article 20 Uses of AI in Content Creation, it is possible to use AI in your content creation efforts to perform many different tasks. Just some of them include maintaining your brand voice, competitor analysis, and creating high-quality images, saving hours of searching for that “perfect” stock photo.
  
  Maybe you struggle to think of a good blog headline or subject line for your next email newsletter? AI can help with ideation and get those creative juices flowing. 

• Presentations: During Jon’s presentation, he showcased how he used Gamma.app’s (AI PowerPoint creator) “paste in text” feature to generate the presentation he gave us. He essentially gave the AI generator the prompt of “how to be a better social media strategist,” chose the amount of text per card he wanted, picked a template, and hit the “generate” button to create his presentation on becoming a better social media strategist. Once generated, it gave him a full-on presentation with customized slides that had relevant images to complement each of them. 

 

Why Learning AI Matters Now 

• Saves Time: I think we can all agree as social media marketing professionals that AI can save us LOADS of time with whatever task it may be that we’re trying to accomplish. Raegan Hedley of Sprout Social shares that marketers are happier than ever since AI tools give them the ability to generate videos and images, ideas, custom replies, and captions in a matter of seconds. Unless you’re not using AI tools, the days of spending countless hours coming up with content ideas are finally over. 

• Gives a competitive edge: Aside from saving us irreplaceable time, AI tools give us the power to one-up our competitors. For those of you not using AI, perhaps it’s worth reconsidering, because your competition may be doing so, leaving you in the dust. Not only will the implementation of AI into your marketing strategy keep you in the loop with competitors, but it can enhance your company’s ability to make more informed marketing decisions, predict market trends to stay ahead of the curve, and understand their target audience’s needs and preferences, which can aid in giving them more relevant products, services, and content. 

• Enhances your work: How many times have you been trying to think of an idea for a social media post, thought what you had was great, asked an AI generator for some ideas, and got 10 ideas that blew your original idea out of the water? Guilty as charged. Aside from having AI generate ideas for social media posts, Raegan Hedly suggests AI can assist in increasing audience engagement, enhancing ads, and examining data much faster.  

 

AI Tools Worth Diving Into 

Ready to explore the magic of AI tools and improve your social media marketing strategy? I know I am! Here are some wonderful AI tools Jon mentioned in his presentation: 

• ChatGPT – Great for idea generation.

• Canva Magic Design – AI-powered design tool. 

• Gamma AI – AI-powered presentation builder that offers how in-depth you want the text to be on each slide, and allows for customizable slides (various colors, layouts, etc) 

• Mindpal – Allows social media marketers to repurpose content from things such as blog posts and turn them into marketing emails or fantastic social media content.

These tools can certainly aid in the repetitive nature of our jobs, so we can focus more on creativity, connection, and results! 

 

Final Thoughts 

AI isn’t just a trend–it’s something we’ll be seeing as social media marketers on a daily basis. Learning how to use it isn’t optional anymore; it’s essential if we want to stay competitive in the field. 

Now, the question isn’t, “Will AI take your job?” It’s “Will you learn to work with AI before someone else does?” 

What AI trends have excited you recently in the social media marketing field? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to know your thoughts! 

 

Author: Sam Cuellar

Digital Marketing graduate from DePaul University, Marketing & Sales Coordinator at the National Institute for Social Media, and professional bass player with a passion for music, weightlifting, traveling, and social media marketing.