7 AI in social media examples to inspire your strategy

Artificial intelligence (AI) is supercharging social media marketing. Think of AI social media tools like Sprout Social as your marketing pit crew. They can fine-tune your social media engine, swap out tired tactics and keep you running at peak performance—they just can’t drive the car. The AI in social media examples we’re sharing in this article come from brands with a skilled driver and a solid race strategy to help them win.

AI and automation have arrived to help free up time and open up new creative possibilities. Just in time, too: According to The Social Media Productivity Report, 63% of social media marketers are feeling burnt out. AI is accelerating everything from content creation to trendspotting to reporting, and these examples are the tip of the iceberg. More brands are finding creative ways to use AI in marketing every day.

Find out how AI can enhance your social media marketing, and check out the AI in social media examples below to see how brands are using AI to stay ahead of competitors.

AI in social media helps with more than content creation

Looking forward, AI will play a significant role in the future of social media. A recent Sprout Pulse Survey found that 82% of marketers who are using AI and ML tools in their workflow have already seen positive results. And according to The 2023 State of Social Media Report, 93% of business leaders expect to invest more in AI and ML technology for marketing over the next three years. AI social media tools offer brands a way to stay competitive and raise their content and customer experience standards.

Not sure where to start with adding AI to your social media strategy? Our AI marketing toolkit has ready-to-use templates, practical tips and strategies to help you confidently implement AI and future-proof your marketing efforts.

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To put the speed of AI uptake in perspective, the US adopted gen AI faster than personal computers and the internet. Marketers love it because it can generate personalized replies, ideas, captions, videos and images in a few clicks. To stay competitive in today’s marketplace, you need to explore how to use AI for social media beyond content creation.

Using AI in social media can help brands grow their engagement, better manage social media, provide personalized customer care, improve ads, analyze data faster and scale social media marketing strategies. It turns data into actionable insights and makes workflows smoother. As more brands use AI, social media marketing standards will keep rising, and brands will find new ways to stay ahead using AI tools.

AI in social media examples from brands who are ahead of the curve

AI gives you access to valuable information, but it’s how you use it to improve your social media marketing that counts. Let’s look at some AI in social media examples to see how brands use AI to their advantage.

1. Mastercard started jumping on microtrends with AI data analysis

Global brands need a head start if they’re going to respond to social media microtrends (conversations that dominate social platforms for three days, max).

Mastercard built a digital marketing engine to monitor conversations across social media and identify microtrends before they go mainstream. The technology helps Mastercard target relevant trends by cross-referencing them with specific approved topics. If it’s a good fit for MasterCard, AI will notify the marketing team, and if they want to participate, the brand taps in with pre-made social media posts and targeted ads.

You too can use features like listening spike alerts and industry themes in Sprout to get notified of micro-trends and respond to them before they pass.

2. Chipotle leaned on sentiment analysis to craft timely strategies

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chipotle used AI to track shifts in customer sentiment and behavior on social media. According to Forbes, the brand used these analytics to inform its marketing, customer service, food safety practices and more. It enabled Chipotle to change its messaging in response to what was happening, which meant talking about free delivery and employee and guest safety.

Using sentiment analysis also led to successful campaigns like #ChipotleTogether, where Chipotle got celebrities like Colton Underwood (The Bachelor) and Kaskade to host lunch parties and gave away free burritos.

3. Mercedes-Benz pulled data using AI to create a responsive campaign

Mercedes-Benz launched an out-of-the-box, localized campaign at their headquarters in Poland to promote their new T-Class vehicle. Called “The moody colors of Poland,” the campaign was aimed at encouraging people to be in tune with their emotions, and showed they could match their mood to the color of the T-Class interior that came in all eight ambient lighting shades (happiness was yellow, relaxation was green, etc.).

The company used an AI tool to identify and gather Polish social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and blogs via emotion-focused keywords and hashtags (#joy, #love, #sadness, etc.).

Based on how its Polish audience was feeling online the previous day, the lighting on one of the floors of their headquarters building, billboard and a special outdoor display featuring the T-Class would change.

The campaign received many accolades and is an example of how AI insights from social media can directly plug into your marketing campaigns to make them more creative and strategic.

4. Louis Vuitton is using sentiment analysis to proactively moderate content

Louis Vuitton uses sentiment analysis to stay on top of sensitive and problematic content. The brand assesses over 250,000 messages a month on social media. When it comes to sensitive topics like cultural appropriation or animal welfare, the brand gets notified when they are mentioned. Additionally, when user-generated content is considered “toxic,” the AI automatically removes the content, protecting the brand’s integrity and ensuring the safety of its online spaces.

5. Vanguard is experimenting with messaging on LinkedIn

Brands that work in heavily regulated industries, like Vanguard Institutional, need guardrails to ensure they’re staying compliant on social media. This is why the brand turned to AI to experiment with its messaging on LinkedIn.

They tested multiple versions of messages, analyzed the components and identified the most effective phrases for the audience. This enabled the brand to refine the social media posts it puts out on LinkedIn and create personalized content that customers are more likely to engage with.

Use this strategy to strengthen your own social ROI. With Sprout, you can use our generative AI tools to create and test different captions on social media, using reporting tools to identify what drives the best engagement.

6. The NFL is overcoming language barriers with AI

As the NFL brand expands beyond the US, it’s experimenting with AI to make its marketing and fan experiences more engaging and authentic. The brand is working to create an AI to scale and personalize content. It wants to generate copy in multiple languages, change out creative based on the channel or location and personalize IRL experiences using AI.

For example, if a player is more popular in the US, the NFL would use that person’s image in ads and on social media, but if Germany prefers a different player, its AI solution would be able to translate the copy and swap out the image or video.

7. Sprout Social’s AI tools to optimize workflows

If we’re looking at AI in social media examples, we can’t overlook our own case study. Adopting AI in our processes has been part of building a culture of AI.

Our AI tools have helped our team be more productive, refined our brand voice and kept us ahead of social media trends. It’s helped our social team save 72 hours/quarter and $16,000 annually in reporting. We’re working smarter and delivering high-quality content with assistance from AI.

Sprout’s AI Assist is like a social media assistant that spots patterns, simplifies tasks and helps us brainstorm when we’re stuck. These tools enable us to auto-schedule content based on performance insights and select the best times to post for engagement, and do much more, so we’re able to spend less time on manual tasks and more time creating meaningful connections.

Here’s how we’re using AI to drive better business results.

• Alt text is critical for prioritizing accessibility. Generate by AI Assist in Compose generates alt text for social media images. This capability enables you to create new options until you have one that works.

• Creative ideas and consistency in brand voice are top priorities to ensure we post content our audiences love. AI Assist helps us brainstorm captions in different tones, detect inconsistencies in voice and correct them before they get posted.
• Summarize by AI Assist scans our weekly and monthly social media reports and finds data trends in sentiment, volume and engagement. So, instead of spending hours reviewing everything, you can turn data into information and start actioning it faster.

• Similarly, social customer service can be a time-intensive job, but Enhance by AI Assist (Smart Inbox) allows us to respond more quickly and appropriately. AI Assist prioritizes our messages based on sentiment and fine-tunes the tone of our replies to match the purpose and the customer’s tone.

By integrating AI Assist, we’re saving time and creating better content and experiences for our audience.

Using AI in social media can give you a competitive edge

These AI in social media examples prove that when you use AI for more than content creation, you can discover new levels of efficiency, creativity and audience engagement. From simplifying workflows to delivering data-driven insights, AI tools empower brands to make smarter decisions, faster. Brands that adopt AI early and find new ways to harness it will lead in 2025.

If you want to create your own AI social media marketing strategy, download our AI Marketing Resources Toolkit to learn how.