Artificial intelligence (AI) is giving influencer marketers plenty of new ideas and strategies to test. With the explosion of tools like ChatGPT, Dall-E 2, and Flick, AI’s effect on influencer marketing is anyone’s guess.
That’s why we went straight to the source. We asked ChatGPT to predict AI’s potential role and impact on influencer marketing and how brands can start implementing AI to their advantage. Here’s what we learned.
(A note for our readers: We’ve included ChatGPT’s responses in quoted Italics. These quotes have been edited for length and clarity.)
Table of Contents
What Is an Influencer?
AI’s Effect on Influencer Marketing, According to ChatGPT
AI Use Cases in Influencer Marketing
What Do Humans Think About AI in Influencer Marketing?
ChatGPT on the Future of Influencer Marketing
What Is an Influencer?
Influencer Meaning: An influencer is a person or thing that has the power to influence another’s opinions, emotions, or buying decisions.
Meltwater Influencer Marketing defines an influencer as someone who has authority and influence over an audience, usually for the purpose of encouraging action (e.g., making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or service). Influencers recommend items on their social media channels or blogs with the goal of growing awareness for their brand partners, earning commissions on sales, and attracting new followers and brand partnerships.
To make sure ChatGPT is on the same page as our in-house influencer marketing experts, we asked it to clarify what a social influencer is. Here’s its paraphrased response:
“An influencer is someone who has established credibility, expertise, and a significant following in a particular topic or industry. They have the power to influence their audience based on their expertise, reputation, and engaging content. Influencers typically have a strong presence on social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or a personal blog.”
Spot-on.
AI’s Effect on Influencer Marketing, According to ChatGPT
It’s worth noting that ChatGPT’s knowledge cuts off around September 2021. This means that any new technology, trends or intel that has entered the public eye since then is foreign to the AI model.
Despite its lack of “new” knowledge, ChatGPT sounds confident about AI’s future role in influencer marketing.
We asked about its predictions about AI’s role in the future of influencer marketing, requesting brutal honesty. Here’s an edited response:
“In the future, AI will play a significant role in influencer marketing, revolutionizing the way brands connect with their target audiences.
AI will undoubtedly streamline and enhance several aspects of influencer marketing campaigns, including influencer identification, analyzing influencer marketing-related data, and content optimization. AI can save businesses significant time and resources, particularly in optimizing ad placements and determining the best times to engage with followers.”
However, ChatGPT was quick to point out that AI technology does have its limitations in influencer marketing campaigns.
“Brands must acknowledge that AI is not a magic wand that guarantees success in influencer marketing campaigns. While it can enhance decision-making and efficiency, it cannot entirely replace the human touch.
Building authentic relationships with influencers and their audiences requires a deep understanding of your brand's values and objectives. AI can assist in identifying potential influencers, but it cannot substitute the process of building trust and rapport with them.”
Our takeaway: AI’s effect on influencer marketing is exciting. It can revolutionize the way businesses find, engage, and collaborate with influencers. It can streamline processes and deliver data-driven insights.
But AI is not a perfect science that can run your entire influencer marketing strategy behind the scenes. AI is a tool, and tools are used by humans to create ideal outcomes. By learning how to use these tools now, brands can get the best of both powerful computing and human creativity.
AI Use Cases in Influencer Marketing
Overall, ChatGPT’s initial responses lacked in-depth detail. It gives structure without essence — a clear sign that AI isn’t replacing humans anytime soon. Digging a little deeper, we asked ChatGPT to explain its suggestions on how to use AI in influencer marketing campaigns. These practical ideas offer a good starting point.
Identify the Best-Fit Brand Partners
Choosing the right brand influencer is a key part of successful influencer marketing campaigns. They’re not always easy to identify on the surface; audience sizes, likes, comments, and shares only tell part of the story.
AI can fill the knowledge gaps by analyzing data below the surface on a large, real-time scale.
“AI can help brands identify the most relevant influencers for their brand by analyzing vast amounts of data, including demographics, engagement metrics, and even sentiment analysis. With AI's data-driven insights, companies can make informed decisions on which influencers align best with their brand values and target audience.”
This includes identifying influencers that might not otherwise land on a brand’s radar. For example, celebrity influencers are the most well-known because of their popularity. Brands may have a harder time learning about micro influencers or nano influencers because they’re not as popular. AI tools can surface insights on these smaller influencers that may have a greater impact on their campaigns than celebrities.
Optimize Content Creation
One of AI’s most attractive potential benefits is its role in creating content at a faster pace. With Google having clarified its stance on AI content, more marketers are interested in asking AI to help with content creation.
In terms of influencer marketing, ChatGPT believes AI can support brands and influencers alike:
“With advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, AI can generate high-quality, personalized content at scale. It can analyze vast amounts of data, including customer preferences, trends, and insights, to craft engaging and relevant content that resonates with your target audience.”
AI can adapt to different types of content formats, including blog posts, social media captions, video scripts, and more. It won’t always create ready-to-publish pieces, though. You’ll still need humans to improve the output, infusing your brand voice and making it yours. But it can give you a sound starting point and get you almost to the finish line.
Identify the Best Channels for Your Brand
The benefits of influencer marketing have become more widely known, leading brands to capitalize on those benefits via every channel possible. Being everywhere all at once is exhausting, not to mention expensive, time-consuming, and not always effective.
ChatGPT predicts that AI can alleviate the effects of channel proliferation to make your social influencer marketing more impactful:
“AI can empower you with valuable content distribution strategies. With data-driven analytics and predictive algorithms, AI can identify the most effective channels and times to reach your audience. It can automatically segment your audience, tailor messages, and even assist in influencer selection. AI can uncover patterns and trends in consumer behavior, allowing you to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.”
Every social media channel caters to different types of users. Digital influencers who are active on more than one channel might have different audiences on each channel. AI helps brands take these nuances into account when choosing where to promote themselves.
Track Influencer Performance
Choosing a social influencer based on data is one thing; seeing how that influencer delivered for your brand is quite another. AI may provide a solution in proving you made the right call with its ability to analyze vast amounts of data.
“AI can analyze user behavior, engagement metrics, and conversion data to help you improve your content strategy. From A/B testing headlines and images to optimizing SEO keywords and meta descriptions, AI gives you clear ways to fine-tune your content to maximize its impact and drive measurable results.”
AI can review data related to engagement, sentiment, reach, and conversions. It can compare this data to that of competitors using influencers to see how your influencers stack up against others.
What Do Humans Think About AI in Influencer Marketing?
It’s natural to feel wary or concerned about the implications of new technologies. It takes ongoing experimentation to unlock their value and understand how outcomes will affect end users. But so far, AI’s effect on influencer marketing seems positive, according to humans.
In a recent Modern Retail article, one content strategist notes that machine learning has been a major time-saver. They’ve implemented Notion AI to organize tasks and to-do lists, organize brand campaigns, and generate social media captions.
Influencers are also keen on using AI to cut down on administrative tasks. According to the above article, 90% of a content creator’s job is email, so AI can help with things like project planning and day-to-day tasks.
Data shows that over 61% of marketers have at least tried AI. There’s certainly some interest here, and the primary reason why 38%+ have yet to try it is a lack of understanding. As more resources become available for marketers to apply AI technologies to their day-to-day operations, this figure is likely to grow.
ChatGPT on the Future of Influencer Marketing
Overall, ChatGPT believes there are plenty of opportunities to include AI in influencer marketing. Just as computers and the internet improved the way we worked 20+ years ago, AI adds a new layer of improvement to help us do more in less time.
It’s about streamlining processes, gaining more insights, and making better decisions. But it also requires human creativity, good judgment, and strong connections and rapport.
To gain the best of both worlds, Meltwater Influencer Marketing's end-to-end platform empowers your influencer management. Gain data-driven insights at scale to identify, vet, connect with, and track your social influencers. Get in touch for a demo today!
“And remember, as a brilliant content marketing strategist, you hold the key to harnessing AI's potential and creating exceptional content experiences that set your brand apart.”
