The advancement and accessibility of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way we live and work. Social media is no exception. This article details the ways in which AI has already changed the world of social media and will continue to do so for years to come.
Content Creation
One of the most obvious influences of AI on social media is the content itself. With powerful text and image generation tools at their fingertips, creators are able to publish AI-generated content in just seconds.
For creators on social media, the emergence of AI allows them to produce and manage content on a larger scale with less manual work. For a business, this could represent major time and cost savings. Depending on the type of content the creator is now generating or has published in the past, AI-made content could improve the overall quality as well. At the very least, AI-generated content can be visually appealing.
While the time and cost savings of AI-generated content are real, this approach comes with some significant drawbacks as well. The biggest concern with AI content is authenticity. For users, content that has been obviously AI-generated can provoke a negative perception of the creator or brand that has published it. Over time, leaning on AI content too heavily can degrade relationships with the audience. It’s important to remember that in an age of abundant content and voices, authenticity is what captures hearts, minds, and wallets.
Personalizing Feeds
One of the more beneficial aspects of AI is its ability to help social media platforms personalize the content you see or don’t see. After all, part of what makes social media so addictive is the relevant content. Without that level of personalization, social media is just a mess of random content, most of which is uninteresting, trivial, or even offensive.
The personalization begins with data collection. Thanks to powerful AI, social media platforms can gather vast amounts of data, including interactions, viewing patterns, demographics, interests, and contextual data like time and location. Armed with data, algorithms begin analyzing to identify patterns and preferences.
By predicting which content a user would like to see based on individual preferences and the preferences of similar users, social media platforms are able to serve up content that’s most relevant to that user. Appropriate content that aligns with interests is prioritized, plus the algorithm can make suggestions for what to watch or view next.
In the end, AI-powered content personalization is a win for everyone. Users gain access to the most interesting and relevant content, while creators get rewarded for their strong content with views and engagement.
Targeted Advertising
In the same way AI is able to help social media platforms collect data and curate content for users, it can also improve the targeting of paid social media posts and ads. The algorithms developed by social media platforms are able to collect and process vast amounts of data that fuel decision-making when it comes to paid advertising.
What does targeted advertising with the help of AI look like? AI allows creators and advertisers to personalize the delivery and content of ads. Besides just location, device type, and time of day, advertisers can target users who have shown interest in or engaged with certain content. Ads can also be shown when users are most likely to engage. Budgets and spending can even be adjusted in real time to adjust to market trends and user activity. Finally, AI has the ability to serve content dynamically, meaning different users are shown different content.
This level of targeting for paid ads on social media stands to benefit both creators (advertisers) and users. Creators get to serve ads to specific audiences of their choosing, while users are shown ads that are relevant to them, which is better than the alternative.
Customer Service
If you’ve browsed the internet lately, chances are you’ve come across an AI-powered chat program often referred to as a chatbot. These chat tools are typically linked to the ‘Help’ section of a website, and are designed to help users find what they’re looking for, answer questions, and redirect their concerns to real people if necessary.
The main benefit of these AI-powered chatbots is the ability to serve users instantly at all hours of the day. They also don’t cost nearly as much as paying real people to answer every single question and complaint.
In the best case, AI chatbots on social media platforms can answer immediate questions from users and help them by directing them to useful resources. The steps necessary to report users, flag content, and access an account can be kick-started with the help of AI. Plus, given the nature of AI, the more these chatbots are used, the more data that’s collected and the more useful they become.
Unfortunately, as you might have already experienced, AI chatbots are not always helpful. And if you’re attempting to talk with a real human, they can be downright infuriating. When chatbots fail to understand a user’s query or fail to help them find what they need, feelings of strong frustration can be provoked.
Content Moderation
For years, social media was like the wild west. Ideas of all kinds flowed freely, but so did the disturbing, graphic, and inappropriate content. Not only was this type of content offensive and horrible to look at, but it also presented real risks for advertisers, along with children who might have come across it.
Content moderation has come a long way thanks to AI-powered algorithms. These AI models begin by training on large datasets of content deemed both appropriate and inappropriate. After enough time and training, the AI is ready to begin analyzing real user content on social media platforms. It scans text, images and videos and flags content that violates the rules of the social platform, which could include everything from graphic violence to harassment. The AI models then have the power to take action. This could mean hiding content or removing it altogether, or simply flagging it for manual (human) review.
AI is changing the world of social media, impacting everyone from users and creators to advertisers and platforms. Caorda’s in-house social media specialists can help your business stay ahead of the game while working with you to create a digital presence that’s authentic and engaging. Contact us today to inquire about reaching more customers with social media.