A popular question was asked to a group of millennials and Gen-Zs – “What is the first thing you do in the morning after waking up?” Most people answered that they check their Instagram/Twitter accounts. Such is the relevance of social media in our lives. Social media was not a very well-known concept for a very long time. The idea that people could connect with other people anywhere across the globe, share their pictures, life updates and just random thoughts with the push of a button was not only new but also appeared strange. Social media started as a simple means to be in touch with friends but, it has now become an extremely important part of our daily lives even more so with the innovation in AI.
Now social media is not just about sharing our pictures or major life events, it is a place to read news, learn more about different sectors such as business, and entertainment and even provide a platform for bringing social change. But there is one secret force driving this change, i.e. Artificial Intelligence (AI). Over the past few years, AI has changed the way we use social media and the way these companies run their platforms. This blog explores how companies use AI in the field of social media and its prospects.
Why use AI in social media?
Social media has become a place to get information on anything under the sun right from your favourite shopping brands to top influencers. This has led to the use of AI in social media companies. Demis Hassabis CEO of AI firm DeepMind, calls AI the “science of making machines smart.” This means that the machines are being taught to copy the intelligence of people. We are all scrolling on our smartphones for one thing or the other. These smartphones use Artificial Intelligence to power real-time navigation. Top companies like Netflix, Amazon etc, use AI to recommend products and content.
Benefits of using AI in social media
Artificial intelligence and social media are perfect for each other in many ways. This is because AI can help marketers increase productivity and performance in their work and across popular social media platforms.
In social media, AI can both accelerate revenue and reduce costs across a range of use cases.
Increase revenue
Because artificial intelligence learns from data, it can use data from social media audiences to accelerate revenue in many ways, such as:
- It can learn which headlines, words, and images in posts that lead to the most audience engagement.
- It can find out new users/audiences and trends based on sentiment analysis
- It can predict who will take action and buy more, then target them with social messages.
Reduce costs
AI can also be used to reduce costs across social media marketing activities, by making your work more efficient and automated. AI can:
- Automate and increase the creation of content for social media ads.
- Automatically resize and reformat creative for different channels.
How are top social media companies using Artificial Intelligence?
AI technology is an important part of many popular social media networks people use daily and they do marketing on those platforms –
- Facebook uses advanced machine learning to do everything right from providing content that you are interested in to recognizing your face in photos to target users with advertising. Instagram (owned by Facebook) uses AI to identify visuals. Sephora also uses AI to bring customers on a beauty journey. It was one of the first beauty brands to embrace the interactive nature of chatbots in 2016 which has seen huge success for the brand. Using Facebook and Messenger, Sephora launched chatbot ‘Ora’ aimed at millennials in France. Available 24/7, the chatbot can answer a wide variety of questions about frequent shopper points, order tracking, product availability, and more.
- Moreover, LinkedIn uses AI to give job recommendations, and ideas, suggest people you might like to connect with and serve you specific posts in your feed.
- Snapchat also leverages the power of computer vision, an AI technology, to track your features and overlay filters that move with your face in real-time.
These are just a few examples of how AI works to enhance features of the world’s most popular social networks.
Future trends in social media with the rise of AI
The AI market in social media is expected to reach $3.7 million by 2026 according to Mordor Intelligence. AI and big data are transforming social media by personalizing experiences and improving marketing strategies. AI bots help provide solutions to customer queries quickly, while AI algorithms provide personalized content. Social media websites like Instagram and Facebook have shopping features on their platforms. This makes it easier for users to shop online without leaving the app. Social commerce relies on three main elements: social media integration, user-generated content, and interactive content. Thus, it is safe to say that Artificial Intelligence will rule the future of social media. Every single day, developers are launching new apps with more AI-driven features. It will improve everything from content creation and optimization to ad management and influencer marketing.
