Nearly 3 billion people are active on social media today. To make sense of all the data available on social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, more marketers are turning to artificial intelligence (AI).
By leveraging AI in social media, marketers can create smarter social campaigns and engage with consumers by understanding their thoughts and needs. Some tools use AI to determine consumer engagement with a brand’s social content, while others help companies track when and how consumers mention their brand.
The role of social media AI is growing fast. So what’s the best way for your brand to start leveraging artificial intelligence to improve your social media strategy?
- How AI Benefits Social Media
- AI Tools to Boost Your Social Media Strategy
- Using ‘Personalize’ as a Complement to Social Media AI
5 Benefits of Social Media AI
Before you can understand which AI tools you need, you have to know how artificial intelligence in social media is making a difference for companies. Here are five ways it’s doing that.
1. Improving Customer Service
Consumers have more power than ever before, which means the customer experience is becoming increasingly important.
Couple that with the fact that 80% of consumers expect companies to interact with them on social platforms, and you have a recipe for social customer service success.
But unless your company can afford to hire social media staff, it’s not always easy to fill this role. Luckily, companies can use AI tools to answer basic questions that help maintain a relationship with customers.
The takeaway: Automating simple tasks like responding to common questions frees up your staff to handle more complex issues. And since AI never gets tired, it can provide around-the-clock service that human staff can’t match.
2. Rerouting Questions
When AI can’t find the right answer, the next best thing it can do is direct customers to the right person or department (or inform someone in the department to step in).
Thanks to machine learning and natural language processing, artificial intelligence-based programs (such as virtual assistants and chatbots) have an easier time understanding your customers. These programs know when a question is beyond what they are capable of answering.
The takeaway: Rerouting tough questions from chatbots to staff ensures that customers always get the answers they need.
3. Determining Future Content
Brands are continually looking for ways to create engaging content on social media. But finding time to curate posts, research trending topics and engage with other accounts is a time-consuming luxury for many businesses. One study even found that over 50% of senior marketing directors spend only one hour or less per week on social.
AI-based platforms (like SparkToro) make it easy to sift through the noise of social media and help companies optimize their channels. AI tools analyze social mentions and industry-relevant questions and even review what gaps your competitors are leaving open.
The takeaway: By leveraging AI to determine what content will be most successful, businesses can get a leg up on the competition and make sure they’re always putting their best foot forward.
Stumped for content ideas? Take a look at our favorite content idea generators.
4. Performing Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis involves analyzing how your audience feels about your social media posts or ads. By performing sentiment analysis, you can determine what content or writing tones resonate best with your network.
For example, if you recently launched an ad about undershirts but didn’t see much engagement, you would perform this analysis to understand viewers’ opinions. Sifting through comments and likes on multiple platforms can be tiring, but AI-based systems can analyze responses in no time.
The takeaway: Understanding how your audience feels about your content helps you adjust your strategy accordingly. After all, there’s no use in continuing to push a product or content type that people don’t want.
5. Finding Influencers
The popularity of social media influencer marketing continues to accelerate. Companies are looking for influencers who align with their branding and values and can help them reach a wider audience.
But finding the right influencers isn’t always easy. Luckily, artificial intelligence can help marketers track down and choose the right influencers based on follower count, personal branding and relevant content.
The takeaway: By utilizing AI to find social media influencers, businesses can ensure that they’re teaming up with people who will help them achieve their goals.
5 AI Tools to Boost Your Social Media Strategy
Now that you know some ways AI can elevate your social strategy, it’s time to explore your options. Try these AI social media tools to get a head start on improving your social media strategies and consumer relationships.
1. Chatbots
Purpose: Create exceptional customer experiences through customer service communication.
Chatbots can help your brand improve customer service on social media through instantaneous responses.
Note that not all chatbots employ AI software. So as you’re vetting different chatbot platforms, talk to vendors about how they use machine learning, natural language processing and AI-based programming.
We’ve found these chatbots to be among the best on the market. Learn more about them on our blog: The Best AI Chatbots to Increase Your Customer Engagement and Revenue.
- ManyChat
- Chatfuel
- MobileMonkey
- Aivo
- ItsAlive
- Imperson
- Pandorabots
- Bold360
- Botsify
2. Yext
Purpose: Keep up with customer reviews and maintain your social reputation.
Yext helps organizations set up and maintain company profiles across multiple websites. You can also process customer review data and respond to the most urgent reviews promptly.
3. Netbase
Purpose: Monitor and provide insights into social analytics to improve products and services.
Netbase is an AI-based social media analytics platform. Nextbase provides thoughtful recommendations and insights, encouraging your company to focus on being proactive rather than reactive about your social responses.
4. CRMs
Purpose: Equip your business with a central platform to manage customer communications.
Customer relationship managers (CRMs) can integrate your social media relationships with ongoing service interactions. In other words, if a customer emails you but also messages your brand on Facebook, you’ll be able to keep track of the relationship and ensure seamless correspondence.
Many CRM and automation platforms already have built-in AI tools. Make it easy to connect the touchpoints between you and your customers, and glean insights into the data they allow you to access.
Here are a few examples of popular CRMs:
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Freshworks
- ActiveCampaign
- Zoho
5. Pattern89
Purpose: Handle social media ads to ensure you don’t overspend.
There are two ways to build a social ad campaign: set the budget and let the ad run until the budget is capped, or create an ad and allow the platform to set the bid for you. Either way, you might not get the return on investment you want.
Enter a tool like Pattern89, which uses AI to analyze how your ad creative can attain better ROI. You can enhance your bid and optimize channel management and budget for a better social ad experience.
Using ‘Personalize’ as a Complement to Social Media AI
The more you deploy AI in social media, the better your customer experience will be. But where do you start? With metrics? Customer reviews? Influencers? And once you implement these tools, how can you ensure your prospects go from mild interest to purchase or conversion?
With Personalize, it’s easy to make strides in your social media strategy and overarching digital marketing strategy.
Personalize is an AI-powered recommendation engine that enables you to track your customers’ top interests in real-time. You can use it in conjunction with other AI social media tools to connect with your customers and provide personalized product recommendations. From there, you can create campaigns that directly target your contacts’ interests, keeping them engaged for the long haul.
Request a demo and sign up for a free 30-day trial of Personalize today!
