Artificial Intelligence in social media: friend or foe?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed everything. It’s becoming increasingly evident that AI impacts every part of society — and it’s here to stay. 

For example, Siri or Google Assistant in smartphones, it’s not an other-worldly force that answers questions; it’s artificial intelligence. And the AI revolution shows no sign of stopping here. In an interview with the New York Times, Geoffrey Hinton, who used to work for Google, warned that AI chatbots will become more intelligent than humans.

The technologies of tomorrow, like driverless cars, will only function because of artificial intelligence. Businesses are now jumping onto the AI bandwagon. And why not? 

Continuous advancements in AI, such as machine learning, allow a business to become more productive than ever. Artificial intelligence continually evolves, bringing innovative ways of connecting with audiences and speeding up internal processes. Furthermore, it’s now common to see AI in user testing apps and for planning future products.

A prime example of how AI is boosting businesses is via the medium of social networks and content creation. 

What is artificial intelligence?

AI is everywhere, but not everyone understands it. When most people think of AI, it’s easy to imagine scenes from the 1985 blockbuster ‘Terminator. In truth, it isn’t quite as dystopian as that. Artificial intelligence, as we speak, has no plans for world domination (Thankfully). Currently, we’re using it to make our everyday lives better.

We’ve already looked at artificial intelligence’s impact across the globe. It’s a fair assessment to say it’s far-reaching, covering everything from financial services to smart doorbells. But how has AI become so all-encompassing? AI is highly complex, but it’s pretty simple at its core.

An AI algorithm works by recreating human thought patterns to complete tasks. To work, artificial intelligence needs a continuous stream of high-quality data. Data is vital; it’s no secret that almost all businesses are constantly hunting for personal data. A large part of that quest is to build an effective AI system that targets a consumer’s wants and needs. 

How does artificial intelligence work in social media?

Social media and AI go hand-in-hand, rather like spaghetti and bolognese. Social media would not exist if it weren’t for artificial intelligence. Most elements of a social media company rely on technology. For example, Instagram will advertise recommended accounts based on a user’s activity, almost identical to how product recommendations work on Amazon.

AI in a social media platform analyses a user’s behaviour to find the content they will want to consume. In turn, this ensures the user is exposed to their platform for the maximum amount of time, thus increasing their user engagement rate and experience.

Social media platforms now use AI to spot abuse in comment sections of social media posts and messages. Facebook, for example, uses an AI tool known as deep text to spot instances of abuse.

According to Facebook, the end goal of AI technology is to build a system with the same level of intelligence as a human.

What are the benefits of artificial intelligence and social media?

A Smart(er) marketing strategy

Artificial intelligence ensures an insightful analysis of a business and its online customers. Using AI as part of a smart digital marketing strategy utilises the data available to a company to attract potential customers. 

Improved customer intelligence

An organisation must understand its customers’ wants and needs to effectively market a product or service. Social media management executed correctly will use a combination of machine learning and AI to gather and analyse behavioural and social data. The blend of AI and machine learning ensures that a business can get an accurate profile of its customer.

Human beings take a long time to develop behavioural patterns. As for AI in social media, this is done at lightspeed. Using a customer’s every interaction on a social media platform, AI will learn their needs and accurately predict their purchase behaviours and preferences to increase conversion rates. This is executed in large parts through targeted social media advertising. To improve customer service, Artificial intelligence will: 

• Image recognition: recognise images via software and understand changes in patterns or behaviours of the user.
• Protect the privacy of information and safeguard users through user authentication, fraud prevention and pattern detection
• Analyse a user’s sentiments. AI uses natural language processing (NLP) to find positive or negative words in a comment or post.

Overall customer experience 

AI improves chatbot service and personalised browsing. It’s a technological advancement that offers an exceptional overall customer. Artificial intelligence helps improve user experience projects, and it provides tailored options to fulfil the needs and wants of the customer.

The benefits are that these advancements in automation involves deep learning algorithms and are not limited to personalised web browsing. It analyses data in huge volumes from users, including shares, likes, product interests, or comments. 

Customer service chatbots

AI’s recent recognition and language processing progress has undoubtedly helped more companies deliver better customer service. This technological advancement has come to the pass, mainly through chatbots.

AI-powered customer service chatbots have a considerable amount to offer a business. The most significant advantage of using AI in social media marketing is its ability to respond accurately to customer queries, regardless of their location. AI chatbots respond in real time to multiple customer queries, even if the questions are repetitive. 

Learn specialist skills in a fast-growth area of computer science

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in social media is a fast-growth area as organisations continue to recognise the impact it can have on user experience. Whether its big data, social media content or social listening, AI is the future.

The University of Abertay’s MSc Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence equips you with in-depth knowledge in the field of computer science alongside an introduction to the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence. 

With six starts per year, you can start your MSc in weeks. What’s more, our courses are taught entirely online and self-paced, so you can study while continuing to build your career.