Assist, Don’t Create: Tips for using AI for your social media posts

This is the latest issue of Represent from Social Simulator,? your monthly boost to help you navigate social media and build your confidence in a digital world. Let us know what you think and if there’s any tips you’d like us to cover in future newsletters.?

AI is in the news daily, with strong opinions on the benefits and risks as the technology develops. More and more social media platforms are now incorporating generative AI into their user experience, partly to encourage users to sign up for premium subscriptions. If you don’t want to pay, free tools including ChatGPT and Bing Copilot will also suggest or re-write content for you.

The question on everyone's mind it seems, is should you use generative AI for your content??

We recommend that you do use AI to help with:

?? Idea generation: Tools like Chat-GPT or Bing Copilot can help get you started if you’re struggling to come up with ideas for what to post. Use their language-learning capabilities to help you get to the ideas that work best for you. We talked about other tips for generating ideas in our March newsletter.

?? Putting together a first draft: Starting from a blank page is hard, so using Generative AI to suggest a post for you can put you in the position of editing rather that generating.

?? Editing images: Programs like Let’s Enhance, or other AI tools in Canva or Adobe, can be useful for touching up images for social media.??

While this can get you to a middle ground when it comes to utilizing AI, there’s a few things to keep in mind so your posts continue to help you stand out from the crowd.

? Authenticity is still key: People connect with you on LinkedIn and other platforms because they want to hear updates from YOU. Authenticity and professionalism are highly valued, and your connections may not respond well to content they suspect has been generated by AI or otherwise doesn’t sound like you.?

? Don't be misunderstood or worse: AI-generated content isn’t always accurate, and where tools edit versions of your writing, the meaning may be subtly altered. If you do use AI tools, always be sure to check and research the details thoroughly and write posts in your own words.

? Maintain transparency: Meta, and even Snapchat, are introducing labels for AI-generated imagery on their platforms. This is great for us as consumers of content so we can be clear about what we are seeing. But if you use AI to generate more than the initial ideas for content, be prepared to be honest about how you have used a tool, and that in future your content may be labeled for you.

AI isn’t going away, it’s something we need to be knowledgeable about, and evaluate the pros and cons of how we use it. So be cautious, but be curious.?

Try asking ChatGPT what are the most common questions people have about your area of expertise and use one of the answers as inspiration for your next update.

Useful Links

Want to learn more about AI? Here are some useful links:

• The OECD - OCDE has put together a policy observatory which gathers all the latest information regarding AI and AI policy from around the world.
• As mentioned earlier, social media platforms are starting to integrate AI into their user experience. We’ve included some helpful links below if you’d like to learn more. Linkedin | Meta | X/Twitter

If this is your first time reading, welcome! Represent is a newsletter for anyone who uses social media to talk about their work. Every issue we provide a little motivation, inspiration and ideas to help you stay on top. Let us know your thoughts by commenting below and if you found this useful, we encourage you to share with your network.?

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