There’s literally AI in everything—from personal Google Assistant to AI-driven email marketing tools, predictive analytics for customer behavior, and automated ad bidding systems that optimize campaign performance in real time. Social media is not an exception.
Most companies now utilize AI and AI-powered social media tools to streamline their content creation process, enhance audience engagement, improve ad targeting, and scale performance analytics.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of the brands bringing AI to life in social media and how you can do the same to refine your social media strategy.
How AI Is Transforming Social Media Marketing
The global market revenues of AI in marketing hit $36 billion in 2024 and over $370 billion in AI-enabled ads. That’s a testament to how largely AI has influenced marketing across channels, including social media platforms like Facebook.
Sprout’s 2023 report on the state of social media also shows that 93% of business leaders expect to invest more in AI and ML to optimize marketing over the next three years.
“AI programs are now capable of streamlining advertising through automated ad bidding and smart ad targeting, handling customer support through bots, and helping you craft content that resonates with your audience. While you shouldn’t leave the heavy lifting of your social media activities to AI, you need to proactively integrate it into your marketing strategies to enhance audience engagement, improve visibility, and boost ROI”, Adrian Iorga, Founder & President at Stairhopper Movers, says.
Further, incorporating AI into your social media strategy can significantly enhance content creation and audience engagement. For instance, Shopify’s AI tool, Shopify Magic, simplifies marketing content generation, including social media posts, by providing integrated AI capabilities directly within your Shopify store.
Top 6 Use Cases of AI in Social Media to Inspire Your Strategy
AI in social media marketing isn’t something you need to reinvent. Let’s explore how some brands have leveraged smart AI models to drive business success on social media.
Sephora-bots for social media shopping
Raihan Masroor, Founder & CEO at Your Doctors Online, says, “Chatbots are AI-powered programs that use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to understand queries and generate human-like responses. While these bots have mainly played their roles on websites and brand applications, they’re also seeing applications on social media platforms like Facebook.”
Take Sephora as a case study. The French multinational retailer of beauty and personal care products launched two of the earliest chatbots, Virtual Artist and Reservation Assistant, on Facebook Messenger in 2016.
Messenger
- Virtual Artist: The Messenger-integrated bot uses AI and augmented reality (AR) to help users try makeup virtually. By uploading a selfie, you can see how different products, such as lipsticks and eyeshadows, look on your face in real time. Virtual Assist also provides personalized recommendations based on your skin tone and preferences, allowing you to explore various looks before making a purchase.
- Reservation Assistant: Sephora’s Messenger Assistant helps customers book in-store beauty services effortlessly. You can select your preferred store, choose a service like makeovers or skincare consultations, and schedule an appointment—all within the Messenger app. This approach provides real-time availability and confirmation, reducing the need for manual booking and enhancing customer convenience.
Another brand that integrates shopbots with Facebook Messenger is eBay, an e-commerce marketplace with billions of listings in its inventory. The bot combines AI, cloud computing, and human judgment to assist customers in finding ideal products and handling inquiries 24/7.
What sets eBay’s bot apart is that you can ask much more complex questions, such as, “I’m going on a mountain hike with my family of two for three days. Might need a tent.” The program automatically analyzes your query to provide tent recommendations that fit your family size, the hiking terrain, and extra amenities you might need.
Most importantly, these social media shopping assistants from Sephora and eBay learn continuously. With the wealth of inventories and data from customer interactions, the bots continue to be a better version of themselves and strive to serve customers better.
To implement this strategy:
- Integrate AI-powered chatbots like Chatfuel, ManyChat, or MobileMonkey into your social media platforms to automate customer interactions and enhance engagement.
- You can use Dialogflow or IBM Watson Assistant for advanced natural language processing, enabling your bot to understand queries and provide personalized recommendations.
- If you’re in retail, combine ModiFace or Perfect Corp with Messenger chatbots to offer AR-powered virtual try-ons like Sephora.
- For service-based businesses, sync your social media chatbot with Calendly or Acuity Scheduling to streamline appointment bookings.
- Continuously train your bot with customer interactions using AI analytics tools like Dashbot to improve responses and drive better conversions.
Content Personalization on Tiktok: LuisaViaRoma
30% of users mainly use social media to find good content, and 38% use it to fill spare time. That’s why creators are always on the heels of creating personalized content that resonates with their audience.
However, accurate personalization is only possible when you have access to your audience’s data, according to Wojciech Ratajczak, CEO at EssayService. “You need to know and analyze what ticks your customers’ emotions, how and where to post, the format of content to use at the moment, and the current trends. That can be quite difficult to do”
To solve this problem, brands like TikTok are releasing advanced content assistants such as Symphony AI. TikTok designed this AI-powered agent to serve as an interface between creators and TikTok’s wealth of published content from users. Based on user prompts, Symphony AI can:
- Help creators brainstorm trending ideas based on top-performing posts per different niches. This saves creators from creative block and allows free access to data-driven inspirations.
- Analyze top ads on TikTok and get valuable insights that you can implement to give your own campaigns an edge.
For trends, Tiktok claims Symphony AI can enable creators:
- See trending concepts from the past day.
- Learn why they went viral.
- Explore related videos to the concept.
- Discover related audio to the concept.
- Extract video-level insights with script analysis.
LuisaViaRoma, a luxury retailer founded in Italy, leveraged this AI to boost CTR by 71%, drive more link clicks by 80%, and reduce CPA by over 11%. To achieve these results, LuisaViaRoma also utilized Symphony’s Avatar creator and AI dubbing.
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To implement this strategy:
- Leverage BuzzSumo and Exploding Topics to analyze viral trends and understand what resonates with your audience.
- For deeper insights, tools like TikTok’s Symphony AI and TrendTok Analytics can help you track top-performing posts, analyze ad success, and discover trending audio.
- If you’re running ad campaigns, use Creatopy or Adzooma to optimize creatives with AI-driven recommendations for personalization.
Automated Content Creation by Goosehead Insurance
“Brainstorming a creative idea is just a part of content creation, and the likes of Symphony AI on TikTok can help you out with that. You can also leverage AI tools like chatGPT, though not as platform-specific as an in-app agent like Symphony, to flesh out good concepts”, David Haskins, CEO at WrongfulDeathLawyer.com, says.
But creating the content, scripts, or even a single-lined caption can be a big hurdle, especially if you’re short on resources or time. Brands like Goosehead Insurance, an independent personal lines insurance agency, faced this issue and opted for AI-powered writing tools such as Jasper.
Goosehead utilized Jasper to create social media content and captions and to repurpose existing social media posts into something more meaningful. In addition to using the AI tool to write blog posts and segmented emails, the brand’s overall CTR increased by 22%, total revenue for all channels increased by 20% from Q3 to Q4, and visibility gained 87% month over month.
To implement this approach:
- Choose from AI writing tools like Jasper, Copy.ai, or ChatGPT to generate engaging social media posts, captions, and scripts efficiently.
- Use tools like Canva for social media creatives. For instance, if you’re in the fashion niche, you can use AI features on Canva to design t-shirts in different variations and post on your social media.
- Use Anyword or Writesonic to optimize messaging for different audience segments, just as Goosehead Insurance did to boost CTR and revenue.
- If repurposing content is your challenge, leverage Lately for AI-driven content repackaging and Grammarly for refinement.
- For teams, integrating AI-powered workflow tools like Notion AI or critical path management tools like Wrike with AI plugins can help manage content planning and execution, ensuring consistency and impact across all channels.
Lil-Miquela, the virtual influencer
Years ago, you could beat your chest that all social media influencers are human. Well, that was the truth until Brud—a transmedia studio that creates digital characters for unique storytelling—decided to break the norm in 2016.
Brud created an AI-powered virtual influencer named Lil Miquela which was designed with a proprietary technology dev, 3D rendering and motion capture, GenAI, and narrative engagement programming. Lil is so far capable of engaging audiences, promoting brands, and creating content without a human presence, and she boasts 3.4 million followers on TikTok.
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Given its unusualness, Brud’s creation has garnered a good reputation with brands that are leveraging this AI-designed personality to influence their product’s visibility. This includes the likes of Samsung, Dior, Gucci, and Prada.
In 2023, BMW partnered with Lil Miquela to roll out an iX2 campaign, also known as “Make it real.” The campaign’s short video currently has over 182,000 views and 215 comments on YouTube.
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Other virtual influencers leveraged by brands include Thalasya by Magnavem Studio, Janky by Superplastic, and Noonoouri by Joerg Zuber. The likes of Burberry, TikTok, Adidas Tokyo, and IKEA Japan also use virtual influencer Imma Gram to build publicity.
Rob Gold, VP, Marketing Communications at Intermedia, says, “One good takeaway about using virtual influencers for social media marketing is that they’re capable of tabling creative campaign ideas inexhaustibly. This helps to maintain consistent branding and engage audiences without the limitations of human influencers.”
To implement this strategy:
- Search for virtual influencers relevant to your niche and reach out.
- Allow for creative freedom to boost campaign results but provide guardrails.
- Don’t use virtual influencers alone—combine them with human influencers to boost reach and authenticity.
Smart Ad Targeting: Lacoste and Airbnb
Social media advertising market value is projected to reach $276 billion in 2025, which is a testament to how valuable it is for scaling your business. To help businesses maximize their investment, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have integrated AI into their ad system. This AI leverages behavioral data and customer interests to optimize ad placements, automate bidding, and ensure the right audience sees your content, providing a smart way on how to market your business on social media.
Brands like Lacoste also embrace Enhencer’s AI to directly streamline targeting on social platforms outside Facebook. The AI analyzes past customer purchases, website visits, and interactions with Lacoste’s social media channels and uses this data to design creatives that resonate with a preferred target audience.
But what makes the targeting truly smart and hyper-personalized is that Lacoste can leverage the wealth of data analyzed to reach only needed audiences while also generating dynamic ad creatives per individual. Each target audience sees an ad that addresses their need.
Another example is Airbnb, an online marketplace that connects house owners with people who need short-term accommodation. Airbnb utilizes AI to optimize ad placements on social media, targeting potential travelers based on their browsing behavior and preferences. This strategy increases the relevance of ads, thereby improving click-through rates and conversions.
To do the same:
- Leverage AI-driven tools like Facebook Ads Manager, Enhencer, and Google’s Performance Max to automate targeting and optimize placements.
- Use Adzooma or Revealbot to streamline bidding and performance tracking.
- If you’re looking for precision targeting, integrate Pattern89 for predictive analytics.
Sentiment Analysis & Trend Prediction
Knowing what your customers think or need, even without them telling you, is a superpower. Chipotle achieved this by using social media analytics tools to review several functional units within the company, including marketing, food safety, customer service, communications, people, and experience.
This helped to understand customers’ sentiments on issues peculiar to these units on social media and assisted with formulating messaging that hit the spot during the Covid-19 pandemic. Chipotle was also able to come up with programs and initiatives that boosted its reputation in the market.
Louis Vuitton, among others, also uses AI-driven sentiment analysis to stay afloat on sensitive matters, including cultural appropriation or animal welfare, that could possibly make or mar the brand’s reputation. Once notified, the marketing team adjusts its messaging to align with a positive narrative.
Companies such as Evernote, the Denver Nuggets, Edelman, Subaru, and Glassdoor use other commercial AI-powered sentiment analysis tools such as Sproutsocial to predict what their audience wants at the moment and how to best deliver it.
To implement the same:
- Leverage AI-powered sentiment analysis tools like Sprout Social, Brandwatch, or Hootsuite Insights to decode customer emotions.
- Use the results you get to refine your messaging.
- Measure outcome and optimize accordingly.
Wrapping Up AI in Social Media
There are billions of social media users, and each of them can be your potential customer. However, that depends on how well you connect with them. And that’s where AI comes in. Implement social bots like Sephora did to handle customer queries, process orders, and provide augmented product try-ons.
Use in-app AI assistants like Symphony or third-party content analyzers to learn more about your audience and break down competitors’ top-performing campaigns and content. Also, embrace AI writing and graphic creation tools such as Jasper and Canva.
Engage virtual influencers relevant to your niche and utilize AI-based sentiment analysis. Then use the results to refine your strategy.
