Ever wonder how leading brands are transforming their social media strategies with AI?
With an uptick in AI adoption for marketing, AI tools are shaking things up. Brands are seeing huge benefits from using AI to generate dynamic content and power-responsive customer service chatbots.
And these innovations aren’t just for global giants. Small and medium businesses can leverage AI to elevate their social media strategies.
Yes, there are concerns about job security and the worry over AI producing robotic-sounding copy or posts.
But here’s the deal: AI isn’t here to replace you but to elevate your capabilities.
How AI is Shaking Up Social Media
AI has already changed the landscape of digital advertising.
But what about social media?
In just the last few years, AI technology has turned social media management upside down.
What was once a manual and time-intensive process can now be a more streamlined, data-driven operation.
Let's explore a few ways that AI impacts key areas of social media.
Content Creation and Scheduling
AI generators are transforming the way marketers create content, acting like personal assistants behind the scenes.
How?
People use tools like ChatGPT to simplify the creation process with quick drafting and brainstorming help.
With this interactive AI chatbot, it’s easy to repurpose old content and develop new ideas to share with your audience.
AI tools can help social media content creation a lot by automating manual tasks and leaving more time to brainstorm creative ideas. I use AI tools like ChatGPT to help find key points in long-form content. These key points then serve as ideas and pain points we create social media posts around.
However, it's more than just making and sharing content; it's about getting it just right for the target audience.
On numerous social media platforms, AI tools are now smart enough to generate branded content based on trending topics and user interests and define times to post when your audience is most active and engaged.
For instance, if you’re running a trendy clothing shop and launching a new summer collection, tools like Semrush Social and Social Content AI can streamline this process.
You could use Social Content AI to craft engaging posts tailored to highlight your new collection and then schedule these posts for optimal engagement times using insights from Social Analytics.
Social Content AI generates ideas, posts, images, and videos based on your website. You can even simply add a link from your website, and the tool will transform it into engaging posts across various platforms to drive traffic and boost visibility.
This approach ensures your promotions are seen when your fashion-forward audience is most likely browsing their feeds.
Content Repurposing
AI also makes it easy to get more out of your existing content.
For example, you can use tools like AI Video Marketing Automator to transform one of your popular blog posts into a captivating video.
Similarly, the AI Social Social Content Generator can summarize your blog post into a social post, making it perfect for sharing across your platforms.
To illustrate, here’s how to use AI Social Content Generator to convert text into a social post.
Once your brand is defined, click “Create New” and pick “Text to Post.”
Next, define your parameters. Alternatively, you can explore AI-suggested topics by clicking “Surprise me.”
When you’re ready, click “Generate.” The tool then quickly generates a first draft.
Not quite what you were looking for?
No problem, just click on an option to make manual edits.
Once you’re happy with the post, you can click “Publish” to schedule it.
Audience Analysis and Engagement Strategies
Artificial intelligence in social media isn't just good for posting; it’s also great for examining your audience.
AI-powered tools can analyze the data to spot trends and patterns in audience behavior, such as when your fans are most likely to engage, what content they love to share, and even the comments they leave.
So, if you’re promoting the latest line in your trendy clothing shop, AI can pinpoint the best times and ways to connect with your fashion-forward audience.
As you can see, you can even pinpoint whether or not your posts were published when your audience is most active.
When choosing AI tools for audience analysis and engagement, aim for those that offer detailed analytics on audience traits and behaviors, instant feedback, and practical tips on what to change or when to post.
These features turn data into actions, helping you connect better and keep your content on point.
Chatbots and Customer Service
Ever wished you could clone yourself to tackle the endless stream of customer questions? AI could be your answer.
Artificial Intelligence can provide 24/7 customer service agents in the form of AI-driven chatbots, ready to respond to questions at any hour.
For instance, in your clothing store, chatbots can instantly answer common questions on social media messengers like "Is this size available?" or "When will this be back in stock?"
This setup lets your human team focus on more complex inquiries, such as handling specific customer requests or resolving unique issues.
With a combination of human and AI support, you can ensure every customer interaction is as personalized as possible.
When choosing AI chatbots for customer service, make sure your chatbot can chat naturally, mimicking human conversation for smoother interactions.
It should also mesh well with your existing systems, allowing you to retrieve information quickly and answer customer questions on the spot in your brand’s voice. voice.
Personalized Advertising
AI is changing social media advertising by enabling more personalized connections with your target audiences.
Using AI, you can send targeted Facebook ads to customers on social platforms based on their previous interactions with your content.
For instance, if someone browsed a new line of summer dresses or liked a post about a recent fashion show on your clothing shop's page, AI can help ensure that your next ad for those dresses or related items appears in their feed at the ideal time to capture their interest.
This personalized approach boosts conversion rates and enhances the overall shopping experience by making ads feel more relevant and less intrusive.
When selecting AI tools for social media advertising, look for features that offer precise targeting, the ability to dynamically optimize ads in real time, and the capacity for creative experimentation.
This ensures your campaigns continually improve and adapt based on user engagement and feedback.
Automating Repetitive Tasks
AI is a game-changer for managing the mundane, repetitive tasks that can drain your resources.
For example, when managing your clothing store, AI tools can automatically respond to frequent customer queries or regularly update your followers about the latest stock or promotions.
This automation frees you to focus on creating unique content and devising strategies that truly reflect your store’s unique style and appeal to your audience.
When launching bigger social media projects, AI automation helps streamline the process a lot. I use automation features in Monday.com to keep track of social media designs, approved copies and deadlines. In that way, I worry less about repetitive work and can focus more on the social media creative part.
With more mundane tasks automated, you can maintain a consistent presence without sacrificing the personalized touch your brand is known for.
AI Success Stories: Transforming Social Media Engagement
Here’s how some brands have used AI in social media to better connect with their audiences.
How AI-Generated Ads Boosted Market Presence
Goiko, a renowned burger company, achieved a staggering 13000% increase in engagement (using the same budget) by leveraging AdCreative.ai to customize its advertising campaigns.
This platform uses AI to create highly effective ads at scale.
Goiko tried it out and saw great results, demonstrating the profound impact of a strong ad on interaction and brand growth.
Following a similar strategy, Picard, a leader in high-quality frozen foods, also turned to AdCreative.ai.
Picard aimed to enhance its advertising strategies and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
By adopting AI-driven ad creatives, Picard replicated the success seen by Goiko, highlighting the power and effectiveness of ads made by an AI generator.
These examples underscore AI's potential to create ad campaigns at scale and ad campaigns that lead to positive results.
AI-Powered Content Repurposing: Semrush's LinkedIn Success
Curious to see how AI can repurpose content?
Semrush demonstrated this when we transformed an existing blog post into a compelling video on LinkedIn. This innovative approach repurposed content with remarkable engagement.
The post highlighted the conversion of an article into a video in just 52.27 seconds using the AI Video Marketing Generator, sparking widespread interest with 247 reactions, 44 comments, and 24 reposts, surpassing typical results from other social media posts.
RedBalloon's AI Boosts Advertising to Remarkable ROAS Success
Australian entrepreneur Naomi Simson faced steep advertising costs at her company, RedBalloon, which prompted her to turn to an AI tool named Albert.
Albert is a tool designed to optimize ad campaigns through precise targeting, testing, and budgeting adjustments.
Albert proved its worth quickly, experimenting with over 6,500 ad variations in one day and continuously learning from the outcomes.
Integrating this tool into RedBalloon’s strategy paid off handsomely, yielding a staggering 3,000% return on ad spend (ROAS) while slashing marketing costs by 25%.
This example underscores the transformative power of AI in streamlining operations and cutting costs.
Creative Campaigns: Heinz's AI Twist
In 2022, Heinz introduced a fun element to its marketing by leveraging AI creativity, whipping up fun and imaginative ketchup images that captured everyone's attention.
By using AI to generate these quirky pictures, the ketchup brand showcased its playful side and got its customers involved. Fans were invited to suggest and vote on new ideas for images, turning it into a lively interactive campaign.
The best creations were splashed across various marketing channels, sparking buzz and engaging conversations on social media.
Notably, Heinz's campaign was particularly effective because their brand identity aligns well with the playful and innovative nature of AI-generated content.
While this example highlights the capabilities of AI at that time, the technology has since advanced, offering even more sophisticated and practical tools for social media marketing today.
Overview of AI Tools for Social Media
Now that you have an idea of how artificial intelligence is performing in social media, let’s examine some of the specifics of AI-powered social media tools.
General-purpose AI vs Specialized Social Media AI Tools
AI tools can fall into several different categories.
You have your general-purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which are versatile, robust, and capable of handling various tasks for different scenarios.
They can generate content, simulate conversations, help you brainstorm, and even provide basic customer support.
However, they may lack the deep customization and optimization specific to social media platforms.
On the other hand, specialized social media AI tools are designed with the nuances of social media in mind.
These tools are crafted to align with social platforms' specific quirks, boasting features like pinpoint post timing, sophisticated analytics for tracking engagement, and ultra-precise ad targeting.
Let’s look at a few examples.
Social Content AI
Social Content AI: This tool streamlines the creative process by using AI to give you 100 fresh content ideas daily.
You can also brainstorm with AI, input a URL, or start from scratch with your own text. Once you're satisfied with your content, send it to Social Poster for scheduling.
With Social Content AI, no prompts are needed. Content ideas and posts are generated based on your website and description, ensuring they align with your brand. You can easily create visually appealing images and videos tailored to your brand as well.
Social Content AI can be purchased separately if you only need the AI content creation process or as part of Semrush Social for the entire social media flow, including analytics and competitor analysis.
Semrush Social
Semrush Social simplifies your social media management by offering a suite of tools that integrate with the major social media platforms, allowing you to streamline your posting routine.
With Semrush Social, you can create and schedule posts, track their performance, compare your progress with competitors, and engage with users more effectively.
The suite comes with the following tools:
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Social Poster: This tool simplifies posting by allowing you to draft, schedule, and publish content directly to the major social platforms from within the Semrush interface.
- Social Tracker: This tool lets you track your competitors’ social media accounts, comparing their growth and engagement with yours.
It provides detailed reports that help identify top-performing content and audience preferences, which is important for staying ahead in your niche.
- Social Analytics: This tool helps you monitor the vital stats of your own social media channels, including new followers, post reach, engagements, and engagement rates for social platforms.
The tool color-codes data changes—green for positive and red for negative—making it easy to gauge performance at a glance.
- Social Content Insights: This tool is your go-to for monitoring and analyzing performance across multiple social media platforms.
With its dashboard, you can quickly access key engagement metrics and post statistics, helping you refine and optimize your content strategy based on reliable data.
Together, these tools make it easier than ever to stay connected with your audience and measure your success.
AI Video Marketing Automator
The AI Video Marketing Automator in the Semrush App Center offers a simple method of creating explainer videos in minutes.
(This is the tool we used in the example earlier of how to repurpose an article into a video for LinkedIn).
You can customize videos to match your style and automatically share them across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
Features include embedding videos into blogs, scheduling posts, and translating scripts, making it a versatile choice for enhancing digital marketing strategies.
Quuu
Quuu is a content curation tool that automates finding and resharing content on social media to engage and grow an audience.
It provides users with hand-picked, high-quality content that aligns with their specific interests and industry categories.
This enables users to maintain an active and relevant social media presence with less effort in sourcing content themselves.
For example, your clothing brand can use Quuu to consistently post fashion tips and the latest industry trends on platform X, establishing itself as a style leader and keeping followers engaged and stylishly informed.
Rest assured that while Quuu assists in content discovery and suggestions, users still have the final say in selecting and scheduling posts to ensure the content fully matches their strategy and brand voice.
Similarly, Quuu's AI Social Assistant found in the Semrush App Center can simplify your social media management by automating the daily content curation process.
This app keeps your audience engaged and maintains your unique brand voice—free from the usual pitfalls of robotic AI outputs.
Crafting a Game Plan for AI-Powered Social Media Marketing
Embracing AI technology can transform your social media marketing by automating tasks, generating insights, and enhancing content engagement.
Let’s look at a quick step-by-step guide on how to use AI in social media marketing.
Steps to Integrate AI into Your Social Media Strategy
- Assess Your Current Social Media Approach
Start by evaluating your existing strategy. For an apparel store, this might involve analyzing which posts generate the most engagement or sales and identifying which platforms perform best.
Using tools like Semrush Social Analytics to gather and analyze this data effectively.
- Identify Areas for AI Integration
Look at where AI can make a significant impact. For instance, Quuu can help your clothing store build its brand by finding content to share that will resonate with your target audience.
Analyzing the types of content that engage your audience can offer insights into consumer preferences and help refine your product offerings and marketing strategies.
- Set Realistic Goals and Expectations
Decide what you want to achieve with AI. For example, an apparel store might aim to increase engagement by 20% or double the traffic to its online store from social media channels within six months.
The Semrush Social Tracker capabilities can help you set these goals more effectively, as they will help measure the impact of your AI-driven strategies.
- Balancing AI Assistance with Human Creativity
While AI can handle data-heavy tasks like scheduling and analytics, consider involving human creativity to craft engaging posts and campaigns that reflect your brand’s unique voice and aesthetic.
For example, you can leverage AI Video Marketing Automator to generate initial video drafts promoting your store, which your creative team can then refine and personalize.
- Monitoring and Adjusting Your AI Strategy
Regularly monitor the performance of your AI-enhanced strategies. If AI-generated posts for your clothing store do not resonate as expected, refine your approach based on the insights gained.
Social Content Insights is perfect for this. It offers a comprehensive dashboard that displays engagement metrics and post statistics across platforms, helping you identify necessary adjustments to optimize your strategy.
Embracing the Future of AI in Social Media Marketing
AI holds transformative potential for social media marketing, offering tools and insights that can change how we interact online.
Include these AI innovations to streamline your processes and enhance your strategies, but remember to balance them with the unique human creativity that brands need to truly resonate with their audiences.
Ready to integrate AI into your social media strategy today and watch your engagement and efficiency soar?