Does Artificial Intelligence Have A Role To Play In Social Media Marketing’s Future?

Social media has revolutionized communication, marketing, and branding. However, managing the massive amount of content, interactions, and strategies, especially if you have multiple social media accounts can be daunting. That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) can help. AI has prompted a paradigm shift in the digital age with its ability to automate, predict, and customize a user experience.

What AI Can Contribute to Social Media Marketing

AI algorithms and data mining are useful for analyzing the behaviour, character, and interaction of social media site users. Whatever amount of hyper-personalizing of content, automating of non-value added tasks or optimization of a social media campaign process, AI can provide effective and efficient functions in the actualization of social media campaigns.

Imagine swiping through your favourite social media platform with every post, advertisement, or recommendation feeling like it is exactly for you. This level of personalization is possible through AI which learns from user data and online behaviour.

Key Features of Social Media Marketing

AI is changing the way marketers use social media, creating safer, more personalized, and more effective platforms that invite visitors to engage.

Notable benefits include:

• Creating safe spaces: AI tools can detect and remove hateful or inappropriate content, fostering a welcoming environment.
• Automated content generation: AI can assist in creating blogs, captions, and posts. It is not a substitute for human creativity but can deliver customer-relevant data-driven news and content. For online marketers, it provides useful consumer behaviour reports and can also draft content upon which to build online-generated copy.
• Sentiment analysis: AI extracts user feedback and user sentiments to provide brands and marketers with an understanding of consumer responses, both positive and negative.
• Targeted advertising and marketing: By analyzing user behaviour, AI selects advertising suitable to online visitors, maximizing engagement and converting visits into sales.
• Personalized recommendations: AI personalizes content based on prior user behaviour in pursuit of continuous engagement when prospective customers visit social media sites. Marketers study data that AI can analyze like bounce rates, clicks, and abandoned shopping carts.
• Customer engagement and service: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants provide continuous 24/7 care to address customer inquiries and issues. It is an effective first line of enquiry that frees up social media marketing staff to build the appropriate support content and get involved only when issues escalate.
• Real-time trend monitoring: AI tracks discussions and trends in real-time, enabling a brand to capitalize on emerging opportunities quickly.
• Personal social media marketing assistance: With marketers dedicating as many as 60 hours per week to managing social media, the integration of AI offers transformative solutions by serving as the ultimate assistant in managing repetitive tasks.

The Future of AI in Social Media

Can an AI replace social media marketers? When you ask an AI this it humbly states it is unlikely to fully replace human social media marketers. But I’m not so sure.

As we have described above AI already can automate data analysis, target advertising, generate content, enhance customer service and more. What’s left for the humans to do?

• Humans believe they exclusively are capable of strategic thinking whereas AI as it is currently is not.
• Humans believe they continue to have a lock on aligning business goals with an understanding of the marketplace.
• Humans believe they can bring creativity beyond what any AI can do in the development of online marketing campaigns.
• Humans believe they provide emotional intelligence, intuition and empathy, qualities that AIs currently lack.
• Humans believe they would be faster to adapt to a sudden market crisis whereas AI would struggle to deal with this type of rapid change.

Are the humans right?

There is no doubt that social media management still requires the human touch. At least that appears to be true when you ask an AI if human social media marketers will still be required in the future as the technology advances.

The AIs state all of the above as reasons why there will still be human jobs in social media marketing and management in the future. So, although AI is changing the landscape of social media marketing, it remains a useful automation tool that can manage repetitive tasks while enabling businesses to navigate the digital jungle with optimized accuracy, speed, and innovation.

AI can provide transformative energy, reshaping engagement and brand strategies for tomorrow. It helps social media marketers focus on making meaningful and emotional connections with customers, crafting compelling stories, and achieving measurable results.

The synergy of AI and human creativity in social media marketing remains a partnership in the immediate future. But if Ray Kurzweil’s predictions of “the singularity” happen within the next ten years, then social media marketing jobs will change. What are we likely to see? The development of hybrid roles employing humans and AI teamed together. Humans will remain the creatives. AI will provide the power. Social media managers will have to adapt to focus primarily on strategy and creativity. AI will largely take over content creation and automate all the data-driven tasks. That means fewer human jobs in this market segment.

A friend of mine who is a futurist has been building a consulting practice based on recognizing technology in general and particularly advancements in AI will eat jobs faster than businesses can create new ones over the next decade. Social media marketing will feel AI’s bite.