I recently heard a prominent tech pundit say that he thought AI would put a lot of social media managers out of work. And while I understand why he might think that, it also shows a lack of understanding of what social media managers do, the skills they have, and what makes social media marketing effective.

The truth of the matter is that yes, some businesses will try to cut corners and save money by cutting their already understaffed social media teams with the intention that they can simply have AI pick up the slack. But these businesses will be doing so to their detriment. For a brand’s social media marketing efforts to truly be effective, they must be human first.

Now, before you stop reading, thinking I’m a luddite or in some way anti-AI, that couldn’t be further from the truth. AI opens up a whole new world of opportunities, most of which we haven’t even imagined yet. I feel like we are still in the very early stages of seeing what AI will become. It’s like the Internet in 1996. We all knew it was going to be big and world changing, but no one was quite sure how or when. And smart social media teams would do well to start finding ways to use AI to improve their work and make it more efficient.

But while AI can be a powerful tool for time-strapped social media managers who need to feed content to the hungry machine of social media, it will always need the guiding hand of a human to perfect the content it creates and add the human element so vital to effective social media as AI lacks two major qualities that can only come from a social media manager: taste and a human insight into your target audience.

AI is an amazing technology, but it doesn’t have taste. It can create, but can’t tell you if that creation is good or not. It can’t look at an image and tell you if your audience is going to respond positively to it or absolutely hate it. And honestly, most humans can’t do that either. But your social media team can. Taste is an underrated skill that takes time, experience, and even a touch of innate talent.

Your social media team has not only developed this sense of taste, they have also developed both a relationship and understanding with your audience so they know what content audiences will react positively towards. Sure, AI can assist in content creation, but allowing your social team to choose the content and tweak the wording or adjust the image slightly, can have a major impact on the success of your social media efforts.

With AI generated content finding its way to every corner of social media, the brands whose content still has a human touch will be the ones that stand out. I often joke that in the age of generative AI, that I have become an "artisanal social media manager,” lovingly handcrafting small-batch organic social media content. But there really is something to that. In a sea of AI generated content, if we are truly being honest, it all kind of looks and sounds the same. It will be the brands who create content that stands apart from the rest.

This will mean taking risks, experimenting with new kinds of content, and being willing to be a bit more human on social media. What does it mean to “be human” on social media? That’s going to look a bit different for every brand, but it will mean building a distinct voice that is unique to your brand, listening and responding to your audience, and being willing to not be perfect all the time.

So where does AI fit into this? AI should work as an assistant to social media teams, not as their replacements. AI is a great tool for brainstorming ideas, creating demo content that will serve as the model for human designers, writers, and other creatives to build, and streamlining some of the repetitive tasks that will free up social media managers’ time to focus on creative tasks. But the true reality is that the best uses for AI in social media marketing have yet to be discovered. As impressive as the technology is, it’s still in its early stages. But I think we can safely say that the best uses of AI in social media marketing will put skilled and experienced social media professionals in the driver’s seat.

AI has incredible potential for marketers, but without the guiding hand of knowledgeable and experienced human beings, it will only produce content that is generic, repetitive, and ineffective. Overall, when using AI in your social media marketing efforts, it’s important that there is always human oversight to review, adjust, and make sure that whatever comes out of it, is ultimately a product of a human using the technology to augment their own talents.

About the Author

Jon-Stephen Stansel is an award-winning social media professional with over fifteen years of experience managing, building, and creating content for brand social media accounts.

The 10 Principles of Effective Social Media Marketing is available on Amazon and all good retailers from 3rd September in the UK.