In the age of ChatGPT, Jasper, and Gemini, it is only natural for brands to leverage these tools and sharpen their marketing efforts. Social media campaigns are no different. In fact, social media management is reported to be the second most common area for using marketing automation.
With automation becoming the new normal today, how do brands ensure they all don’t end up creating the same messages? After all, it is only when brands distinguish themselves that they can make a difference to their target audience. And hence, be authentic.
So, why don’t we just do away with or at least focus less on automation? Wouldn’t that solve this issue? The simple answer is that social media automation is on the rise for various reasons, such as:
- Faster content creation compared to manual writing
- Consistent output with no human error
- Lowered costs
- Reduced cognitive load
- Data-driven, SEO-optimized material
Of course, authenticity will most likely take a backseat when content is generated robotically. It will lack the human touch, originality, and emotional depth needed to strike a lasting connection with the target audience.
Understanding the Importance of Authenticity in Social Media Messaging
Did you know that a whopping 87% of customers are willing to pay more for products from brands they trust?
Also, as per a 2024 report, 88% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding which brands to support!
As you can tell, authenticity is more than just a buzzword. It is the foundation of an effective social media campaign. How does a brand achieve it? By being transparent, genuine, and sticking to its core values. This can help brands in the following ways:
- Building trust and strengthening relationships with the target audience
- Striking a human connection, thereby boosting engagement
- Creating emotional resonance, resulting in increased brand loyalty
- Adding social responsibility and ethics into the mix
Finding the Middle Ground
While automation and authenticity seem like two completely different arenas, they can be blended to create exceptional social media campaigns. Balance is key, and once that’s achieved, both these factors can complement each other in surprising ways. For instance, while automation can analyze huge amounts of data, authenticity can make it more personalized and relatable.
When AI is used to generate thoughtful content, it can heighten human creativity. Social media marketers can create more resonating messages at a greater speed.
A great example of value creation by blending AI and authenticity is Spotify because of its ability to let users create personalized playlists. Similarly, Sephora harnesses AI to make beauty recommendations to individual customers based on their personal needs.
Because automation is a tool, the quality of the output generated will depend largely on the quality of the input. In that sense, marketers can use automation to make their social media presence more authentic than ever before.
With a plethora of social media platforms available these days, brands try to maintain a consistent presence on the most important ones. To do this successfully, you need to create compelling and authentic content for each one.
Take the example of a growing company like Pack & Send New Zealand. They are currently present primarily on Facebook and Instagram, where they frequently post about their services, engage with customers, and share business updates. They also consistently post articles on their website blog to educate their target audience about how they can solve their logistics-related problems.
Automation can be of great help for promising companies, like Pack & Send, that want to expand their social media presence while conveying authenticity.
Of course, this combination works best when AI is used as a tool that aids human creativity rather than replaces it. However, this is easier said than done and presents certain challenges. Let’s find out what they are.
Challenges in Merging Automation and Authenticity
Even as brands make efforts to amalgamate automation and authenticity, the risk of coming across as impersonal looms large. In such cases, brands might have to deal with the following challenges:
Loss of Trust
Customers look forward to genuine interactions and personalized experiences when communicating with brands on social media. If they receive robotic responses, they might stop trusting the brand and start perceiving it as indifferent.
Diminished Engagement
AI-generated messages and social media content can be mechanical and lack emotion. They can, therefore, fail to appeal to the target audience. As a result, customers will likely feel less understood and may choose not to respond, engage, or take the desired action.
Disconnect with the Brand
If you’ve built your brand by establishing value-based and emotional connections with your customers, the lack of human touch in your brand messaging can spell doom. Remember, your brand’s values need to be conveyed with a human touch for authenticity. Skimping on this can lead to a massive disconnect between your brand and your target audience.
Fortunately, all of these challenges can be overcome with a strategic approach. Progressive brands are actively finding different ways of combining AI-generated content and authenticity in their social media campaigns. Let’s learn more.
Blending Automation and Authenticity in Social Media Campaigns
Here’s how marketing managers can fuse automation and authenticity to create highly effective social media campaigns.
Define Your Goals
This sounds simple, but the key to automating your social media is being clear about your goals and objectives.
What do you want to achieve through automation? Do you want to increase traffic, generate leads, boost conversions, or improve engagement? How will you refine your targeting strategies? Clarity in these aspects will help you understand what parts of your campaign will need to be automated.
Prioritize Authenticity
As mentioned, being authentic means leading with genuineness, transparency, and relatability. Your audience needs to be seen and heard, and feel like they’re interacting with a real person, not just a brand.
Your social media is the best place to showcase your brand’s human side. Sharing humorous anecdotes, behind-the-scenes content, employee stories, and user-generated content can add a human touch to your online presence.
Use the Right Tools
The market is flooded with hundreds of social media automation tools, but you must choose the one that caters to your needs and objectives. Consider factors such as ease of use, AI features, and integrations with other tools.
Some of the best social media automation tools include HubSpot, Hootsuite, and Buffer. Use these to not only streamline your social media activities, but also schedule posts, monitor engagement, analyze performance, and so on.
If you use content-generation tools like ChatGPT, make sure to humanize the material with the ChatGPT humanizer tool, for instance. It also works with other AI text generators like Gemini, Grok, Claude, DeepSeek, Jasper, QuillBot, and Grammarly to create 100% human-like and authentic text.
Maintain Consistency in the Brand Voice
We know that one of the goals of automating content is to make it look as if it were written by a real person. This can be achieved by using a similar brand voice in all your campaigns. For starters, use a friendly, conversational tone. Instead of sounding formal or robotic, you want to sound trustworthy and relatable.
Next, inject a dose of personality and emotion into your social media campaign. Use humor, insights, storytelling, and even emojis to make your content feel more human. Ensure that the final content doesn’t sound raw. Instead, take your time to polish and refine it so it comes across as sincere and heartfelt.
Automate Only Routine Tasks
Automation can work amazingly well for routine tasks like posting updates, tracking analytics, and answering frequently asked questions. This will simplify your processes while giving you more time to facilitate meaningful interactions.
For instance, you can get chatbots to provide answers to basic inquiries. At the same time, customize your chatbot’s responses to reflect your brand’s voice. Program it to use the customer’s name or include a friendly greeting to make interactions more personal.
Use Evergreen Content
The great thing about evergreen content is that it can last years. But you will need to update and refresh it from time to time to keep your social media campaigns relevant. Herein lies a great opportunity to blend automation and authenticity.
Focus on creating compelling and engaging content that can be used across platforms and time periods. Then, use automation for scheduling it on various platforms and ensuring its visibility. Automation can also help with repurposing (for example, turning blog posts into infographics), promoting, and optimizing it for search engines.
Meanwhile, improve the campaign’s authenticity by ensuring your evergreen content continues to be in keeping with your brand’s personality, tone, and values. Avoid using industry jargon and technical terms that might confuse your audience. Instead, use clear and easy-to-understand language that captures your audience’s attention.
Last but not least, showcase your expertise and personality through the content. If you’re good at something in particular, convey it in your unique style rather than copy competitors or use a run-of-the-mill trope. Your audience will surely find your campaigns to be original, authentic, engaging, and relatable.
Personalize Comments and Messages
Comments, DMs, and mentions are great platforms to build rapport with your audience on a one-on-one basis. It makes sense to reply to them personally and show your appreciation for their feedback and support. Make sure to converse with them in a friendly tone so they feel like they’re talking to a buddy, not a machine.
Be Flexible
Each social media platform has its own rules when it comes to character limits, hashtag usage, aspect ratio, optimal posting time, and such. Be mindful of these and craft your content accordingly.
The cookie-cutter approach will work against you. Leave scope for spontaneity by being responsive to current events, trending topics, and real-time engagement opportunities. This way, your content will remain dynamic, engaging, relevant, and timely.
Think Short-Term
While it makes sense to schedule months of content in advance to save time, situations can change at the macro level.
For example, sharing a celebratory post on your social media during an ongoing national crisis could trigger unpleasant reactions from your audience. It’s a good idea to plan for the short term and regularly check your posts so they don’t look out-of-place or unrelatable.
Recheck and Verify
While automation does speed things up, the information provided by AI may not always be reliable. It may not even be up-to-date or completely factual. This means AI-generated content comes with a reasonable scope for error. You don’t want these errors to negatively impact your social media campaign.
Before using any AI content in your campaign, make sure to cross-check all the mentioned facts and figures. Verify that the data presented is, indeed, complete and accurate. This way, you can ensure you’re providing the correct and authentic details to your audience. Using erroneous information in your marketing could mean long-term reputational damage to your brand.
Identify What Works and What Doesn’t
Analytics tools are highly effective in tracking key metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, and click-through rates. Use them to gain insights, and then tweak your social media strategy to balance automation efficacy with authentic interactions.
Follow the Latest Best Practices
It’s no secret that social media best practices are constantly evolving. It’s important to keep up with these changes by following industry blogs and partaking in online/offline forums. Pay heed to what the experts are saying to adapt your strategies to the changing demands of your campaign.
Final Thoughts on Automation and Authenticity in Social Media
When it comes to modern-day social media campaigns, blending automation and authenticity in all the right ways is non-negotiable. While both serve different purposes, they can create magic when unified with the right approach.
Striking the delicate balance between automating routine tasks and adding the human touch to your social media campaigns will make your posts effective as well as genuine. However, be sure to continuously monitor the results and adjust your strategy based on changing needs.
What steps do you take to merge automation and authenticity in your campaigns? Do let us know in the comments section.
