Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a remarkable tool for social media marketers and users. It can save time, spark ideas and start conversations. The capabilities of AI are improving every day, and it’s getting smarter.

Consider these three things before using AI for your social media posts.

1. Understand its purpose: Understanding how you can, want, and should use AI is an important first step. In the same way that calculators were controversial when they were introduced, AI has changed the conversation in many industries, including social media. 

AI cannot replace human connection and interaction. But when we shift our perspective to using AI as a tool, not a replacement for empathetic, creative, and passionate human beings, we start to understand the many possibilities of how AI can help us bring out the best of our “owned” ideas. Some practical uses for AI in social media to consider:

• Asking AI to help generate content ideas for an upcoming campaign
• Using AI to help create a shot list for your content creators
• Prompting AI to make your caption match the tone of your post (funnier, more serious, etc.)

2. Know its limitations (and recognize the red flags): Once you spend enough time with AI content, you’ll be able to quickly spot when AI has written a caption on social media. While it’s improving over time, it doesn’t speak in the same way that humans naturally speak. The more that AI becomes mainstream, the more that consumers are starting to pick up on signals that what they’re seeing probably wasn’t written by a real person. A few examples and tips :

• We notice that AI loves using the rocket ship emoji - and social media users are starting to notice it, too. We recommend swapping out the rocket ship for a more unique emoji, especially when it comes to launching a product (you can see why AI thinks the rocket ship is the perfect emoji for launch posts!)
• AI thinks it's pretty clever, and sometimes it is, but watch out for copy that feels too perfect or polished, or even too cheesy.
• If you’re using AI to help write a caption, you’ll need to ensure the voice and tone is aligned with the voice you’ve established for the social account. Use the caption it generates as a starting point, not a final product.

3. You’re in the driver's seat with AI: Like so many things in life, you get out only as much as you put into it. The better prompts, information, and specificity you can give it, the better job it can do for you. Remember that you’re in charge; you enable AI to help you with your task. To do so, we recommend you:  

• Make it a two-way conversation, and ask AI questions in response. We recommend asking AI “What questions do you have for me to give me a better answer?”
• Explore your options! You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT, but there are other players in the AI game, too. Try experimenting with other AI tools, like Gemini and Perplexity, to see how they change the outcome of your ask and play with the different features they offer.

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