The Impact of Generative AI on Social Media Marketing Strategies and Workflows (Updated for 2024)

The first official TV commercial aired in 1941, lasted just 10 seconds, and cost $9. Today, artificial intelligence crafts digital ads in milliseconds targeting millions. But does the marriage of generative AI and marketing hold a promise not just of efficiency, but of uncharted creativity?

Here’s the thing. AI is not merely about optimizing ad reach or crunching user metrics. It also opens doors to personalized content that resonates. If you know how to make the most of it.

And now, let’s learn how to make AI part of your social media marketing game. 👇

🤖 + 🐦 How Generative AI Is Shaping Social Media Marketing Strategies

From the world’s largest popsicle melting into a wave of sticky goo to ad campaigns promising a Harrier II jet for collecting soda points, the world of marketing has seen it all.

But generative AI, the next frontier of advertising, offers possibilities that even the most daring and forward-thinking marketing execs couldn’t have predicted a decade ago.

(or maybe they did? 🤔 )

So, what is generative AI?

In a nutshell, generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can “learn” from patterns in its training data and produce new content imitating human creativity. ​​From catchy taglines, engaging blog posts, and snazzy graphics, to curated social media captions, it can do it all.

Sounds like a marketer’s dream come true, eh? But it gets better.

Generative AI can cover the whole nine yards of social media marketing efforts, from research and data analysis to managing online interactions and crafting personalized campaigns.

🤝 Engagement	automating responses, personalized messaging
🎞️ Video Content	script writing, video descriptions, video captioning
✏️ Copywriting	ad creation, post generation
🤖 Chatbots	customer service, sales, and marketing
📅 Planning	content strategy, trend forecasting
📊 Analytics	social media monitoring, sentiment analysis, performance tracking

According to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, AI adoption for lead identification, marketing optimization, and personalized interactions is skyrocketing.⁽¹⁾

There are hundreds of AI-powered tools that help marketers manage their social media presence. Some, like Brand24, keep an eye on and analyze what people are saying about brands online. Others like SurferSEO cater to more technical aspects of search engine optimization.

Mordor Intelligence reports that the market for social media AI tools will hit over $5.6 billion by 2028. And that’s nothing to sneeze at considering that OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the holy grail of conversational AI tools (more on that in a moment), has been around for less than a year.⁽²⁾

Whether you’re a social media manager coordinating campaigns, a digital marketer analyzing trends, or a content strategist planning output, AI is a treat you can’t ignore. 🍫

📈 📉 Benefits and Challenges of Generative AI 

AI Content Generation

A brainstorming partner, a copywriting buddy, a not-so-shabby designer, and a competent editor, all available 24/7. That’s what AI is as far as AI content generation goes.

Whether you’re running ad campaigns, promotions, or influencer collaborations, generative AI can significantly speed up your workflow. It’s an excellent tool for pumping out tons of content quickly, but you can also use it selectively to refine the messaging or fine-tune SEO.

The downsides?

The days of robotic, run-of-the-mill content produced by rudimentary AI models may be over, but a trained eye can easily pick up the nuances of AI’s authorship (at least for now). You still need a human in the loop to work in synergy with AI for the best results.

Some AI models also suffer from what’s known as “AI hallucinations.” This is an inherent flaw in the design of generative models where they sometimes produce outputs that seem plausible at first glance, but they don’t make much sense on closer inspection.

❤️ What we love	🤔 Things to keep in mind
The benefits of AI content output.	The lack of the nuances of human creativity.
Content personalization based on data.	The challenge of achieving a perfect alignment with a brand’s voice.
Automation of routine marketing tasks.	The need for supervision and quality control. AI may sometimes produce content that is inappropriate or nonsensical.

Research

“Should we ride the TikTok wave, or are we more of a LinkedIn kind of brand?”

“Is it time to start a YouTube channel or should we stick to Instagram Reels?”

“Is it better to keep posts short and sweet, or are our followers craving long-form content?

Chances are your social media campaigns start with more questions than answers. And that’s perfectly fine. But “figuring things out” (and doing so in the most painless way) takes time.

Generative AI will give you the insights you’re looking for, from audience segmentation and sentiment analysis to content optimization and engagement prediction. Whether you want to track brand mentions or dive into user behavior, AI can act as your single source of truth.

Of course, there is a risk of over-optimization. Social media is, at its core, a platform for human interaction. Focusing too much on data and crunching numbers may obscure the “human element,” the emotional resonance that can’t be replaced with sterile content. Balance is key.

❤️ What we love	🤔 Things to keep in mind
The way AI can process and analyze large volumes of data rapidly.	The reliance on the quality of training data.
The ability to anticipate future trends.	The tendency to overlook contextual / qualitative insights.
The ability of generative AI to uncover unseen patterns and correlations.	The inherent risk of AI hallucinations, especially if the input data is flawed or biased.

Idea Generation

Ideation is hard work. It’s the place where fresh minds meet the grind, and sometimes it feels like trying to choose between the morning coffee and a good night’s sleep.

But brainstorming your next social media campaign doesn’t have to feel like herding cats.

Large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo that powers ChatGPT and Taskade are “trained” on vast amounts of textual data. This gives them an intimate understanding of a wide array of disciplines, something that even the most well-read marketers can’t hope to match.

AI probably won’t give you viral, one-in-a-million ideas. That takes a touch of human ingenuity and serendipity. But for consistent and data-informed brainstorming fodder? There is no better way to kickstart the discovery process and branch off into unexplored avenues.

❤️ What we love	🤔 Things to keep in mind
Comprehensive, data-inspired ideas.	The inability to pick up on very new, rapidly evolving social media trends.
Lower burden on marketing teams and increased bandwidth for deep work.	Sole dependence on AI can lead to missing out on human creativity and instinct.
The benefits of AI idea generation.	The effects of using AI for brainstorming depend on the quality of training data.

🤹‍♂️ Best Practices for Using Generative AI

Start With the Low-Hanging Fruit

What do you hope to achieve by implementing generative AI into your social media marketing? 

Do you want to create personalized content, automate certain tasks, or enhance engagement?

Are there specific campaigns or initiatives where its implementation would be most beneficial?

If you’re just starting out, focus on the low-hanging fruit. Begin with a small project or campaign to understand how generative AI can help you drive better results, and scale up.

For instance, if your goal is to bump your Twitter presence, you can use AI to suggest tweet drafts based on trending topics relevant to your brand. Or, if you’re short on ideas, “ask” AI to come up with a list of topics that will fill your entire content calendar for months.

When you’re done creating content, put your ear to the ground. Use platform analytics to measure the effectiveness of the AI-generated content, run A/B tests, and scale up as needed.

Keep the Human Factor Strong

Automation is cool. But don’t replace your entire creative team with a herd of beeping robots yet. You’ll get the best results if you put AI to work in synergy with human creativity.

Generative AI bridges the gap between data-driven insights and imaginative storytelling. It can help in churning out content ideas or predicting the next big trend. But it’s the blend of empathy, cultural context, and personal experiences that gives life to truly memorable content.

Make generative AI work for your team, not vice versa. Create synergy by:

• ✅ Automating routine tasks, so your team can focus on strategic decisions.
• ✅ Kicking off brainstorming sessions with AI and letting the team iterate on messaging.
• ✅ Testing and refining human-generated content for the best impact.
• ✅ Using AI bots for quick responses, and human empathy for deeper interactions.

Be Transparent

Most of the time, AI does its magic from behind the scenes. It picks the best route when you drive to work, curates your playlists, and serves you Netflix series you MUST watch (apparently). 

So, should content on social media platforms be any different? 

According to Dentsu’s 2023 Consumer Navigator report, most consumers support brands that use AI, but 76% expect them to disclose if the content they interact with was created using artificial intelligence.⁽³⁾ That poses a question: “How best to communicate it?”

Earlier this year, CNET tried to silently roll out AI-generated articles. The experiment ended in backlash when 41 out of 77 stories turned out to include plagiarized or incorrect information.⁽⁴⁾ Had they announced their little experiment, the public reaction might’ve been different.

The use of generative AI in social media may eventually grow on everyone. But for now, it’s best to offer transparency where it’s possible. Even if it means slapping an “AI-generated” badge on parts of your marketing materials to keep your customers in the know.

(psst… we used Taskade AI to brainstorm and outline this article) 🤫

Choose the Right Tool

Assembling the right social media marketing toolbox is no mean feat. With hundreds of AI solutions out there, you may be wondering where to start. If you not only want to find a solution but also invest in the future of your brand, Taskade 🐑 has you covered.

Taskade is an all-in-one productivity platform powered by GPT-4 Turbo, the same technology that runs under the hood of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. With Taskade, you will keep all your social media campaigns in sync, now with powerful AI Agents on board!

• 🤖 Custom AI Agents: Custom AI Agents offer marketing teams an invaluable tool for automating data analysis and content curation. They can be trained with market research documents, competitor analyses, and customer feedback files to provide targeted insights and strategies for smart campaign management.
• 🪄 AI Generator: The AI Generator is a powerful asset for marketing managers, capable of generating detailed campaign outlines and project plans based on brief descriptions. It can organize marketing strategies, set milestones, and distribute resources efficiently, saving time in the planning phase.
• ✏️ AI Assistant: The AI Assistant is particularly useful for generating and editing all types of content. It can help brainstorm content ideas, organize editorial calendars, and even assist in writing drafts. The assistant will help you and your team produce content for multiple platforms in a consistent voice and style.
• 💬 AI Chat: AI Chat is a powerful solution that provides insights into market trends, customer preferences, and other other aspects of the marketing landscape. By analyzing project contents or uploaded documents, it can also serve contextually relevant advice and answers, and aid in rapid marketing strategy development.
• 🗂️ AI Prompt Templates: The AI Prompt Templates Library is a treasure trove for creative campaign ideation. With an extensive range of prompts tailored for various marketing scenarios, this library helps in generating innovative ideas for campaigns, social media strategies, and other marketing initiatives.

Visit Taskade’s pricing page for a full list of AI features!

🚀 How Generative AI Will Continue to Transform Social Media Marketing

The new chapter for social media platforms is here. But what lies ahead?

We’re at a point where AI is just starting to disrupt the marketing space. And it’s doing so across several fronts. From empowering brands to learn more about customers and their preferences, to creating and distributing hyper-personalized, data-driven content.

The adoption of generative AI is growing too. WebFX reports that 45% of marketers already use AI for content creation. To match the heavy usage, we’re likely to see a growing role of AI ad management and automation services to ease the load on marketing teams.⁽⁵⁾

But content creation is only one of the avenues to explore.

With access to advanced large language models, chatbots are getting a new lease on life. Brands can now offload more complex customer inquiries and interactions, funneling more resources into higher-level initiatives that require organic (read: human) ingenuity.

Big brands will be more willing to engage in full-blown partnerships with the providers of AI solutions. One good example is the collaboration between OpenAI and Bain & Company to deliver personalized content and targeted messaging for Coca Cola.

The growing market of open-source AI models, run locally and trained in-house, is also a chance for innovative brands and agencies to build custom tools. This democratization of AI can level the playing field, leveraging personalized marketing strategies once exclusive to big players.

🐑 Parting Words

With legacy media in retreat, generative AI seems to be the next big thing that will bring a breath of fresh air into the industry. Brands that can adapt and navigate this new landscape, blending the best AI tools with human ingenuity, will set the benchmark for the future of advertising.

To wrap things up, here are the key takeaways from this article:

• 🔸 Generative AI is an essential tool for social media marketing.
• 🔸 Analysts predict a $5.6 billion industry for AI in social media by 2028.
• 🔸 AI shines at content creation, personalized messaging, and task automation.
• 🔸 Generative AI works best in synergy with human ingenuity and creativity.
• 🔸 Selecting the right AI tool is crucial, considering cost, support, and scalability.
• 🔸 The democratization of generative AI will be an opportunity for small brands.

Ready to transform your social media marketing?

Grab our AI generators for social media marketing to get started! 🐑

💬 Frequently Asked Questions About Generative AI in Social Media Marketing

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🔗 Resources

1. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/ai-powered-marketing-and-sales-reach-new-heights-with-generative-ai
2. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/ai-market-in-social-media
3. https://www.dentsu.com/il/en/our-latest-thinking
4. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571082/cnet-ai-written-stories-errors-corrections-red-ventures
5. https://www.webfx.com/blog/marketing/ai-statistics/