A majority of people in this day and age spend more time on social media than they do interacting with humans in real life or participating in outdoor activities. If you log in to any social media platform right now, I bet it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a sizeable number of your acquaintances online. Social media has become, as it were, our natural virtual habitat.
According to research by GWI, a typical person spent 2 hours and 31 minutes on social media, or about 38% of the time spent on the internet, at the start of 2023. This figure could only increase as the virtual advances more rapidly than the real.
This may be a tragedy for some people; for marketers, though, it is an opportunity. Marketers are one of the most optimistic bunch of people; they see silver linings everywhere, except perhaps on a mushroom cloud—maybe some do.
Making the most of this opportunity is therefore paramount if you want to make the most of your marketing efforts and maximise your return on investment. That is precisely what you’ll get from this article: how to use ChatGPT for social media marketing.
Why use ChatGPT for social media marketing
Social media marketing can be hugely rewarding, if done right. But it also requires effort, not just because the arena is saturated with players. According to a survey, 96% of small businesses use social media as a marketing tool.
Social media marketing is not a zero-sum game or a winner takes all contest, but there are winners and losers. And winners are those who make the best use of the tools at their disposal.
Here’s where ChatGPT comes into play. You can use ChatGPT for social media marketing to enhance the level of your game. ChatGPT is a godsend, especially for small businesses with tight budgets and stretched resources. There are also various ways that ChatGPT can be used to grow your business.
With the amount of content being generated on social media platforms, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest trends and engage with your audience effectively. With ChatGPT in your social media marketing toolkit, however, you can stay in the game. You can use ChatGPT to help you create content, engage with your audience, and social media schedule.
You can also use it to better understand your audience. You can use ChatGPT for social media marketing to get insights into your audience’s interests, preferences and behaviours. This will help you to create personalised content that resonates with your audience and drives engagement and increase conversions.
Another reason why you need to use ChatGPT for social media marketing is it can help increase brand reputation and credibility. ChatGPT can provide you with appropriate and empathetic responses to inquiries and grievances that customers and audiences have. This can help build trust with your audience and fosters a positive brand image.
Ways to use ChatGPT for social media marketing
There are potentially near-limitless ways to use ChatGPT for social media marketing. The sky is no longer the limit; our imagination is. It is a tool that comes without an instruction manual. So what you use it for and how you use it depends mostly on your ingenuity and resourcefulness.
But since you’re here, I’d assume, without superciliousness, that you are looking for some ideas to help you kickstart using ChatGPT for social media marketing. So, here are a few ways you can use ChatGPT for social media marketing.
Content creation
Social media moves rapidly, very quickly; and as a result, content becomes obsolete quickly. To mitigate this, most people churn out content in large numbers; because if a social media post has a lifespan of about 10 minutes before it gets buried, it’s only logical that people try to produce more content.
But this strategy doesn’t suit well for most people, especially those with limited resources, for obvious reasons. Keeping up with regular content consistently can be a challenge, even for the most industrious and ingenious. So for a dullard like us (me, at any rate) it can be taxing and burdensome.
Fortunately, ChatGPT is here to help with content creation. You can use it for all sorts of purposes: from brainstorming to generating scripts for TikTok videos or Instagram Reels, from writing an Instagram caption to writing a LinkedIn post. Ask and it will be given unto you.
You can use it to write tweets about anything, be they something related to your industry to create engagement with your existing followers or something outside of the ordinary to attract an audience.
With ChatGPT for social media marketing, content drought will be a thing of the past. Use it to create fresh and engaging content.
Create ad copy
Creating ad copies can be strenuous especially since the stakes are higher and there are more factors to consider than an ordinary post. But ChatGPT can make the task a lot less daunting while at the same time increasing the quality of your ads.
ChatGPT can be gainfully employed to create engrossing ads to catch the attention of your audience and boost conversions. You can use just about any platform, and it’ll generate ads in the specific tone or style of the platform.
Optimise social media profiles
The profile description, though not often seen, is nevertheless extremely important. It’s one of the first things visitors see when they visit your profile and can make a lasting impression on them. It helps in creating a voice and a unique personality.
A good social media profile description is essential for effectively communicating your brand’s messaging and values to your target audience. A well-written profile description can help build trust with your audience, increase engagement, and ultimately drive conversions.
You can use ChatGPT to write fitting profile descriptions and also re-craft and optimise existing descriptions.
Those, while not bad, are quite bland. You can specify the tone and personality of your brand and it’ll create profile descriptions accordingly.
Repurpose posts for different platforms
Most people and businesses have a presence on multiple social platforms. Keeping all of them active and engaging with the audience across all platforms can take a huge toll on your time. So, anything that helps you save a bit of time is welcome.
Enters ChatGPT. ChaGPT can help you quickly repurpose your content for different platforms in a matter of seconds. Just ask it to re-write the content for the target platform and it’ll do so.
For example, you can use it to transform a Facebook post into a tweet, conforming to the character limit and with appropriate hashtags.
Repurpose content for different audiences
Related to the previous one, you can use ChatGPT to change the tone and style of a post to appeal to a different audience. Or even for the same audience; for chances are that the majority of your target audience has not seen a post that was popular.
Why create an entirely new one when an existing one would do well, right? This is a better approach than sharing the old post unchanged since it’ll appear new both to those who have seen it previously and those who have not.
With these tricks you’ll never run out of content to share. And never will your audience be left thirsty for content. And never will social media platforms penalise you for inactivity.
But with easy access to fresh and updated content comes the hassle of managing and scheduling your posts. But there’s no need to fret.
Create social media calendar using ChatGPT
Posting frequently is important to boost engagement but doing so haphazardly will minimise the impact. Creating a social media content calendar is hardly any less forgiving than creating content to fill in the slots.
Happily, though, you can use ChatGPT to create social media calendar for you.
Analyse social media metrics
As a social media marketer, you can simply share the posts and leave it at that. That’d be tantamount to giving birth to a baby and leaving it at the hospital. Or maybe not quite, but you get the sense.
The fruits of your labour—and disappointment, too—are in the metrics. Without keeping track of the performance indicators, you cannot get an idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Analysing key performance indicators such as reach, clicks, engagement rate, and shares is critical. While ChatGPT cannot help you with complex analysis, it can help you with some basic but important tasks. And you can ask for formulas to calculate the metrics.
For more complex analysis, Google Sheets is a good tool. Check out these articles on how to integrate Google Ads and Facebook Ads to Google Sheets and automatically track performance from Google Sheets.
Find relevant hashtags
Hashtags have become an indispensable part of social media marketing. They are like keywords in a book’s index. They help users quickly find relevant content.
As a social media marketer, by using relevant hashtags you can make it easier for your target audience to discover your content and engage with it. Using hashtags strategically also helps you to categorise your content, making it easier for you to track and measure engagement.
But though hashtags sound simple and easy, they can be tricky. Creating and discovering hashtags is a skill in itself. And because good and ingenious hashtags can be rewarding, it can also be difficult to find or create.
An easier but no less rewarding approach is to let ChatGPT create and discover hashtags for you.
Engage with users
Engaging with customers on social media is a crucial aspect of building a strong online presence and fostering brand loyalty. By actively engaging with your customers, you can demonstrate that you value their feedback and opinions, and you can provide them with personalised support and assistance
According to Hootsuite, 70% of social media users expect companies to provide customer service via social media. But it’s not just building customer relationships. A research by Bain found that interacting with customers on social media leads them to spend more on their products and services.
Engagement on social media also allows you to humanise your brand and build deeper connections with your audience. Responding to comments and messages in a timely manner can help you build trust and rapport with your customers.
While an authentic and human response is important, you can use ChatGPT to automate certain tasks and generate responses in seconds that you’d spend several minutes on.
It is important to keep in mind that AI-generated content and responses tend to have certain similar characteristics that may be identifiable; and that may put people off. Moreover, good as it is, it cannot emote and empathise, which are crucial in dealing with another human. So it should only be used as a supplement to humans, not a substitute.
Create chatbot
You can also integrate ChatGPT into your messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram and let it serve as a virtual assistant. You can train it with your data and it can respond to customer queries based on the data you’ve fed.
You can then have 24/7 customer support. And if the bot is unable to answer customers questions, it will direct them to a human who can engage with the customers.
When not to use ChatGPT for social media marketing
While ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for social media marketing, there are certain scenarios when it may not be the best fit.
Firstly, ChatGPT may not be suitable for businesses that require a high degree of personalisation in their social media interactions. As an AI-based tool, ChatGPT has limitations in terms of understanding context and delivering personalised responses, especially because it can fail to grasp the nuances of human emotions and sentiments.
Secondly, businesses that have complex products or services may find ChatGPT inadequate for addressing customer inquiries. In such cases, a human touch besides expertise may be required to provide satisfactory responses.
And thirdly, if you prioritise human interaction and relationship-building, then you may not find ChatGPT aligned with your values and goals.
Some related articles
How to Use ChatGPT for Copywriting to Write Effective Copies