Have you heard?! The robots are coming… to help you win with your social media marketing! Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just some sci-fi fantasy anymore; it’s a real marketing superpower waiting to be used and put to work. Using AI for social media marketing can be a great tool. But where do you start?
Don’t worry; I’ve got you covered on this one. I’ve spent over 15 years working as a trailblazer in social media marketing; I’ve been at the forefront since the early days, launching a social media marketing agency before most businesses even had a Facebook or Twitter account. I practically saw the first tweet written (okay, maybe not quite, but close!). I’ve seen trends come and go and tools rise and fall. With the help of my dedicated team at SocialNicole, I make it my job to stay ahead of the curve. That’s why I’m here to give you expert tips on using Generative AI (tools like ChatGPT) to supercharge your social media marketing.
Ready to unlock the power of AI for your social media marketing? Read on!
Jump Ahead:
How Does SocialNicole Agency Use AI
4 Top Tips To Leverage AI For Your Social Media Marketing
How SocialNicole Agency Uses Generative AI for Social Media Marketing
At SocialNicole, we don’t just keep up with the latest trends – we embrace them! That’s why AI is vital to our work. We’re not talking about robots taking over our jobs; instead, we see AI as a powerful tool to refine our work, fuel our creativity, and save us time (which saves our clients money).
While brands can utilize Generative AI in many ways, from generating images to editing videos, SocialNicole Agency’s primary use for Generative AI is writing content. We leverage tools like Chat GPT and Gemini to help ideate, create, and improve the social media marketing and web content we produce for our agency and the brands we work with. Think of generative AI as a partnered brainstorming session rather than a tool that completely replaces human work. We use ChatGPT and Gemini to help us generate caption ideas, ideate post concepts, edit ad copy, and assist with blog writing; we also use it to refine existing work, from emails to proposals (and everything in between). If it’s a copy of some kind, there is a good possibility that ChatGPT or Gemini (or both) were involved in some way, shape, or form as part of the creation process.
So what are the the benefits? Think of AI as a tool to inspire or guide creative work, not hijack it. For example:
🤖 We might decide on just the right hook or wording with the help of ChatGPT suggestions or add to our post by asking it to generate a list of hashtags to test out.
💡 Need some emoji inspiration? ChatGPT can add some in to spice up your text. *(Note ChatGPT came up with these emojis for these bullet points; see how that works)
🧠 Want to brainstorm a batch of social media posts on a specific topic? Let Gemini or ChatGPT kickstart your ideas; then, you can tailor them to your brand voice.
Because we focus on leveraging tools like ChatGPT and Gemini into our workflow at SocialNicole, the tips below will be based on utilizing these tools. But many of these tips can transfer to any set of AI tools you may choose to use.
4 Top Tips to Leverage the Power of Generative AI for Social Media Marketing
Tip #1- AI Is Only As Good As the Human Running It
Problem: Many people think generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini replace humans or that they don’t need a lot of human input to create great content. They believe these tools can stand independently or be leveraged without much human oversight.
Solution: ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools are only as powerful as the humans using them.
Using natural language processing (NLP) generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini requires a person to be strategic and inquisitive and understand how to use the tools available to get valuable results. While these NLP AI tools can help with creativity, save time, and move the needle, they don’t replace the need for humans to direct them. These tools are meant to optimize work and for the best outcomes, and they require human intervention to function effectively. What critical element is missing in NLP AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini? Human emotion and touch. These tools cannot establish connections with your audience like a human can.
With over 1 billion posts being published daily, the need for creative, unique, authentic, and personable content has never been more critical. While AI tools can help in the generative process, the number one mistake made is brands and businesses publishing AI-derived social media content directly from the bot to the feed. Sure, those posts that ChatGPT created sound adequate, but do they fit the brand voice? Do they feel authentic in a way that speaks to your audience? Do they fit the message that’s unique to your business?
Tip #2: Writers Beware: Using AI Tools for Writing Are Only as Good as the Prompt You Use
Problem: You’ve given ChatGPT a shot, but it doesn’t deliver what you want.
Solution: Using ChatGPT or similar tools can be a trial-and-error process to get the results you’re looking for. The more you strategically use a tool like ChatGPT and learn from the outputs you receive, the better you will get at creating prompts that get your desired outcome. You must hone your skills with generative AI to get quality results.
Here are tips that theSocialNicole team has found helpful in writing prompts that get results from ChatGPT or other similar tools:
- Be clear and specific: You must give detailed instructions on what you want from ChatGPT or similar tools. Typically, the more specific you are with your prompt, the better the output.
- Write an outline: Ask ChatGTP to create a draft from a detailed outline. If you use generative AI to make that initial outline (an excellent way to use ChatGPT), ensure the outline is thoroughly reviewed by a human (or a few humans) and edited with facts, details, and information you want added. This is important. The quality of your final post will reflect the quality of the outline.
- Provide context: Providing background information, facts, and details will help ChatGTP craft more accurate content that closely aligns with your content goals.
- Specify the output: Be clear about the type of output you want to see from ChatGPT. For example, tell the bot if you want a list, an outline, or a paragraph. If you want a specific tone of voice, ask for that too.
- Reword your content: If you’re not getting the desired results, try changing the request or rewording your directions.
- Breakdown requests: When asking for complex and longer requests, it can help to break down the request into smaller chunks or steps.
- Modify your requests: You can ask ChatGTP to continue to modify the results until you are satisfied with the output. To do this, you can ask the bot to add facts you supply, shorten results, change the results’ tone, remove words you do not like, restructure the content, etc. The sky is the limit on trying different requests to modify the content to suit your needs.
- Be prepared to edit the results once you are satisfied with what the bot has given you. It can be tempting to accept the results as good enough and simply copy and paste, but the fact is that they will most likely sound very bot-driven. Our process for leveraging bots to help with actual writing is two-fold:
- First, we run a human edit and rewrite any AI-driven content
- Second, we run the final product through ChatZero, which utilizes AI to see what percentage of the content sounds AI-written. This is how we hold our team accountable to ensure they are doing the writing and thinking, not relying solely on the bot. Using AI to identify if our content is authentic or AI-driven is a funny turnabout when you think about it, but it’s a great way to check ourselves. Being creative with AI tools is the name of the game to get from where we are to where we want to be.
Tip #3: Generative AI Isn’t “Smart” So Don’t Treat It Like It Is
Problem: The generative AI output can easily command human trust because NPL generative AI bots like ChatGPT present information matter-of-factly and authoritatively. But bots like ChatGPT are simply gathering information from scraping the internet and user feedback and processing it for consumption. The authoritative voice is merely the lack of human emotion. So, the humans using the bot must be fully aware of this when using these tools.
Solution: Don’t blindly trust the bots; make sure you fact-check the results from NPL generative AI tools like ChatGPT.
Ideally, you will feed the bot the facts you want to use for the output. But whatever you do, do not use ChatGPT or similar tools as your only source of factual information. This is no different from any research you may do online–you never unquestioningly trust one source of information as correct.
Tip #4: Success with AI Starts With Setting Up Proper Protocols for Use
Problem: Your brand consistently struggles to integrate tools like ChatGPT into the content marketing workflow and isn’t seeing quality outcomes.
Solution: Create a set of protocols for implementing this technology into your daily marketing workflow. Here’s what SocialNicole Agency includes in our protocols:
- Training: We have worked to build a well-structured training program for our team. This training program is essential to the practical and consistent use of AI for our work at the agency. We never expect team members to figure AI out independently or assume they understand without training and follow-up. Learning to use AI strategically and effectively is a skill that requires more training and then more training. Strategy is a skill learned over time, which means you need to work to help your team become strategic with AI and offer many training opportunities to advance their skills.
- Develop and Provide Detailed SOPs (standard operating procedures): At SocialNicole, our SOPs clearly outline how to use the generative AI software we use for our workflow.
- Align Protocol: Our protocol is tightly aligned to the specific needs and objectives of our organizational goals and values.
Specific things to include in an SOP for using ChatGPT or similar software for marketing purposes:
- Sample Prompts: For ChatGPT, offer sample prompts that have worked in the past for others in the company. Establish a library of prompts and templates to streamline the content production process.
- Instructions for Avoiding Bot-Like Content: Provide protocol and training to guide your team on how to write and edit with genrative AI. This includes reading content aloud, getting feedback from others, and editing content.
- Plagiarism Checking: Require a plagiarism checker to verify the content is authentic to your organization. We use GPTZero for our plagiarism checking.
- Reverse Engineer Your AI Process: Require your team to use a tool like GPTZero to discern between AI-generated and human-generated content, emphasizing its significance in maintaining authenticity.
- Create a Process For Quality Control: We call our quality control process the 2nd check process. We have this QC process integrated into many areas of our business; it’s how we can boast no errors in over 40,000 published posts over 15 years. Our process includes a team checklist for every significant part of our workflow. This naturally extends to our social media content creation process. The checklist we follow for social media content creation includes plagiarism and AI versus human checks with GPTZero. We incorporate a full QC on all work to ensure we produce the best and most authentic content.
Final Thoughts:
AI offers exciting possibilities for social media marketing, but remember, it’s a helpful and powerful tool, not a replacement for human creativity and expertise.
Combining AI’s efficiency with your brand’s strategic social media vision and human touch, you can create content that is not only creative but also will resonate with your audience and drive results. I hope these insider tips help you embrace AI as a collaborator, not a competitor, and help you drive your marketing teams forward to leverage AI tools effectively.
As a social media innovator, I am excited about the future of AI and how it can help all of us to innovate, ideate, create, and elevate the future of social media marketing. If you have any burning questions about social media marketing that you would like to see us answer here on our blog, please contact us today!