He influencer marketing Will it evolve with the penetration of Artificial Intelligence?
We hear about AI all the time, especially since CHatGPT came out and everyone is talking about it.
On the one hand, it has created a social alarm, so much so that leaders of the technology industry such as Elon Musk, creator of Tesla, or Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, have openly expressed their wish that the accelerated development of this technology be halted until its true scope is known.
But the truth is that AI has been with us for a long time and -although its progress is undeniable- it is good to always wonder how it affects our industry.
In this article we will see the current uses of artificial intelligence in influencer marketing and also its limitations.
AI in influencer marketing
From my experience as CEO of an influencer marketing platform, I can say that we use AI in the following cases:
Discovery and selection of influencers: campaigns with influencers are increasingly more specific in terms of what the client wants to achieve. AI helps us to have more accurate information from influencers about:
Age
Social networks do not give exact information about age (it is not mandatory to give this information to register on a social network or you can lie. The truth is that there is no validation of this information).
If a brand targets a specific age target, the AI detects the age based on the photographs of both the influencers and their audiences.
Location
Sometimes it is not only enough to know what country or city the influencer is from, but also what their radius of action is.
AI allows us to delimit a geographical space by analyzing the mentions or the photographs that are published. This is particularly useful when the client wants to specifically attack a niche that is located in a certain place. It is very useful for campaigns with influencers to promote local businesses such as restaurants, gyms, shops, etc.
mentions
Within the timeline, the AI detects mentions of brands made by influencers, whether in text, photo or video.
Then it is the job of the agency or the marketing team to analyze how the brand is mentioned and what type of content is created around it.
Interests
AI helps collect information about the interests of influencers. In a subsequent analysis by the platform or agency team, this information is used to classify influencers into different categories according to the content they generate.
smileys
A smiley face or a syringe can give more information than it seems. The AI helps to identify emoticons that are attributed to countries, emotions, professions, etc., to get more information about the influencer.
Information gathering
References
AI programs like ChatGPT can scan and find content with references to influencers and brands at the same time.
For example, you can track and report a post that says an influencer attended a brand event. This information is very useful to find out if the brand values are aligned with an influencer.
Classification
AI works in a similar way to the human brain, classifying information based on neural networks that help it infer and order data, it would be something like if A and B then C. For example, if an influencer works for a brand mexicana, we can assume that she lives in Mexico, that would be an inference.
Engagement rate
The AI has the capacity to collect a large amount of data to determine the engagement rate, that is, the interest that influencer arouses in its audience. For example, if an influencer has been mentioned by a fashion outlet, if other fashion influencers mention them as a reference, or if they have worked for other fashion brands and had good results, the AI will be able to recommend them.
Limitations of AI in influencer marketing
As we can see, AI has various uses in influencer marketing, most of them related to data collection.
It is a fact that in this sector it facilitates work. To obtain the information, complex data engineering is needed. With AI, especially with ChatGPT, procedures are shortened which saves time, money and even energy.
So far, these are the limitations of AI in our industry:
haters
Emotions are not yet well detected. The AI can collect data, for example, when talking about topics that call for controversy such as religion or politics, but it does not detect the tone of the comments and consequently does not help to discover the haters.
conclusions
AI continues its accelerated development and while this happens it serves the influencer marketing industry as a powerful tool to unite influencers and brands aligned in values and mission.
It also helps identify the best type of content for campaigns since it can monitor millions of topics daily to find the ones people are engaging with. With this information, both brands and influencers can collaborate to create content guaranteed to produce the greatest engagement.
All this is encouraging, but, so far, there is one thing that AI cannot do: the work of influencers and influencer marketing agencies. That border is still in our hands.
Ishmael El-Qudsi CEO and co-founder of Internet República, one of the main digital marketing agencies in Spain, since November 2011. He is also co-founder and CEO of the influencer marketing platform SocialPubli, founded in 2015, which currently operates in 9 countries.