How marketers can integrate AI into Social Media Strategies to streamline operations and enhance engagement, writes, Almitra Karnik, Head of Marketing, Clevertap.
Since its introduction in the early 2000s, social media has completely changed the world – from how people interact with one another to how companies interact with their customers. Globally, digital consumers are now spending an average of two hours and 24 minutes per day on social networks and messaging apps1. As an integrated part of today’s connected consumers’ daily lives, social media continues to evolve, affecting individuals and businesses alike.
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In today’s growing digital landscape, 52 percent of online brand discovery happens in public social feeds.2 It is important for brands to stand out in the crowd to be among those discovered. Which is one of the reasons why artificial intelligence (AI), a major innovation in digital marketing, continues to gain momentum and change the way businesses are interacting with consumers and driving revenue. As some of the largest data-filled digital platforms, social channels are prime territory for companies to take advantage of AI and dramatically improve customer experiences while streamlining business operations.
Many companies are already leveraging AI tools for push notifications based on clicks. As social media advances and customer data becomes more available than ever before, companies are taking a closer look at how to integrate AI into social media strategies to better connect with current and future customers. AI enables social media marketers to make every engagement an opportunity with a better understanding of their audience and their wants and needs. Plus, with the ability to personalize at scale, AI provides the tools needed to build more effective campaigns that enhance customer interactions, increase engagement and drive brand loyalty.
AI-powered tools allow companies to streamline processes and obtain a better grasp on current and future customer trends. This results in companies delivering more meaningful content and improving customer lifetime value. Following are five AI tools companies can leverage to enhance their social media marketing strategy:
1. Social Management with Machine Learning:
Marketers spend a ton of time creating content for social media distribution, then managing distribution and engagement across channels. As a subset of AI, machine learning (ML) is the real concept driving modern AI forward. Machine learning exists to make predictions about future outcomes based on historical data and gets smarter as new data becomes available. Leveraging insight collected from user data, machine learning can auto-generate social media content across multiple channels and go so far as to automatically include hashtags and shortened links.
2. Listen for Insight and React:
There are a number of AI-powered tools available to help brands obtain customer insight from social media activities. When integrated with the proper AI platform, customer data insight allows companies to listen to consumers, track brand reputation, and discover emerging trends and new audiences to target. This often involves using the power of AI to analyze social media posts at scale. Providing an understanding of what customers are saying, AI can help marketers determine how to best use this information to drive engagement and identify new promotion avenues. Customer insight available through AI can also alert marketers about what content is the most appropriate, when is the best time to post, and how much should be spent on boosting content to get the best results.
3. Streamline Communication with Chatbots:
Today’s consumers live in a world of instant gratification and immediate access to information. Waiting for a business to answer questions can take up a large chunk of a customer’s day. Rather than putting customers through 30 minutes of on-hold tunes or waiting for a call back, companies can leverage a valuable tool called chatbots. Chatbots are pieces of software that conduct conversations via auditory or textual methods and facilitate communication both online and offline between consumers and businesses. Programmed to respond immediately, chatbots save time and enhance the overall customer experience.
4. Be Proactive with Emotion AI:
The power of social media gives everyone a platform to let their voice and opinion be heard, and more often than not, it is negative. Sentiment analysis, also known as emotion AI, uses natural language processing (NLP) to identify positive and negative words in posts and comments on social media. With the help of sentiment analysis, companies can detect negative words across tweets and other social posts to get an understanding of how customers feel toward their brand. With this information, businesses can proactively reach out and respond to customer complaints in a timely and impactful way.
5. Meet AI-Generated Influencers:
There is no denying that social media influencer marketing is a powerful tool for brand awareness and increased sales. AI has taken this to another level with the introduction of virtual personalities popping up as social influencers – most prominently on Instagram. The world’s first digital supermodel, Shudu, is 100 percent computer-generated and has almost 200 thousand followers. These AI-generated influencers merge digital with reality and are quickly gaining popularity. This is just another innovative AI social avenue for companies to connect with target audiences.
When used correctly, AI can provide immense opportunity for social media marketers. Offering unparalleled insight into user behavior, AI offers a holistic view into customer data, and when combined with powerful tools and platforms, AI empowers marketers to innovate and create impactful social media campaigns.