Every week, I’m reading more and more articles about AI. When I think every side has been covered, another angle pops up. To say AI is hot for every industry right now is more than an understatement.

In social media, people are trying to use it to take the place of the social media manager and it never ends well. Although there are some great uses for AI, it can’t take the place of a whole person. It can help that person be a little more efficient and get them unstuck in certain situations.

So what are some instances where you shouldn’t use AI? Let’s talk about it.

Creating your whole social media strategy

Something I’ve started hearing lately is, “If AI can create my social media strategy for me, why do I need you?” Honestly, if you say this to a social media consultant, that is a very good sign that you don’t respect what they do and is a bit of a red flag. But I digress…

AI takes info that it already sees on the internet and uses that to answer any questions. So it’s responses are based on what everyone else is doing and has very little creativity. Do you honestly think you should do what everyone else is doing? Is that how you will get noticed by your audience? The answer is no.

The strategy AI gives you can be the start of the conversation of what you should do on social media, but it shouldn’t be the whole conversation. Put the personality of your brand into it and it will be loads more effective.

Using AI for your images and graphics

Some brands are having all of these AI images pop up. This is one of those things where you know it when you see it. There is just something off about it, so you stop concentrating on the message. You just start picking out what is wrong with the image. Anyone that has seen how AI does hands knows exactly what I’m talking about.

But it’s more than that. Like I said above, AI looks at what is already on the internet and that includes images. So, by using AI, you are effectively stealing from artists. You might be thinking it’s not that big of a deal, but it honestly is. By taking money out of the pockets of graphic designers, photographers and other artists, you are effectively making it even more difficult for them to make a living wage off of their art. And when you need them to create something that is unique and true to your brand, they just won’t be there because they couldn’t make enough off of their art to live. Or they may just refuse to work with you because of the way you use AI.

And you also don’t know how the legalities will work out. Using artists’ work without their permission leaves you open to legal action. Do you really want to be in that position? I know that I don’t.

Using AI to create your captions

A lot of news organizations are going this route. It might work for them. I don’t know because I don’t see their analytics. But it is unlikely to work for your brand.

Like with images and graphics, there’s usually something off about the copy. It feels like a computer wrote it. There is something that is not just right. Your fans will focus on that rather than the message. When you get a split second of your audience’s time, you want them focused on that message, not the weirdness that is there.

And once again, it will be a copy of what everyone else is doing since that is all AI is capable of doing at the moment. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, then you won’t stand out and you’ll lose that chance to connect. The more your audience sees that you’re not connecting, the more likely they are to go onto something else.

What AI can do

It is great for giving you a jumping off point. If you’re stuck and not sure how to move forward, AI can help. You can put what ideas you do have in and find out possible ways they can go together. Honestly, I’ve never had AI come up with the perfect formula, so I take what it gives me and polish it into the perfect fit for a client. It always ends up being more from my brain than AI. But AI helped get it done. In other words, AI is fantastic for content ideation, but remember to do the content generation yourself to make your social media stand out from the rest.

What you using AI for?