Cause Marketing

AI Task Framework: Examples of What I’d Outsource To AI And What I Wouldn’t.

Copilot created this image of a college age man sitting said in a basement looking lonely at an old dusty unused exercise bike.
~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

This is the second post in a series of five on AI. In my last post, I introduced an AI task framework to be more intentional about why and how we use AI in our jobs, businesses, or organizations. In this post, I give examples based on my previous advertising career.

AI Framework Template for AI Use Click on the image to download a PDF template.

As an advertising copywriter, some everyday Tasks and Goals included:

  1. Fill out timesheets detailing what I worked on each day to bill time to clients and projects to get paid.
  2. Research a client’s business and industry to demonstrate knowledge of their unique challenges and opportunities.
  3. Create ideas for campaigns and individual ads to sell to a client and publish to meet marketing objectives.
  4. Write social media ad copy for social media marketing to generate engagement and conversions for a client.

(1.) I would outsource timesheets to AI.

I envision an AI assistant that Extracts (AI Function) file use logs from programs like Microsoft Word, Categorizes (AI Function) by job number, and Creates (Level of Thinking) a spreadsheet listing client, job, and time. I could review and adjust it before submitting.

After thinking of this example, I discovered that Microsoft is adding this capability. Copilot for time entry creates time entries for team members without navigating through forms or filling details with dropdowns, generating first drafts for users to modify and confirm for timesheet submission.

The Level of Thinking in this example is Applying a process to Create a suggestion for my time entry (AI Capabilities). It doesn’t require creativity or imagination and I maintain final human judgment on accuracy (Distinctive Human Skill). By tracking job numbers no Copyrighted or Proprietary data is used. Human impact is positive. Everyone I knew hated timesheets. We loved coming up with ideas (Legal & Ethical Use).

(2.) AI could help with some aspects of client research.

AI could Answer Questions (AI Function) like “What are the current challenges and opportunities in the ice cream industry?” An open system like GPT would give me general answers based on open sources from the internet that may or may not be the most current, accurate, or relevant.

AI is Understanding (Level of Thinking) on a cursory level (AI Capability). To contextualize this understanding to your client and judge for accuracy (Distinctive Human Skill) you need proprietary data from paid databases like Mintel, your client, or your own research. Your personal experience with the client or industry is an added Distinctive Human Skill.

You could outsource this to AI by uploading proprietary data into an AI model Summarize and Ask Questions. (AI Function). But you’re uploading Copyrighted/Proprietary material without permission (Legal & Ethical Use). Mintel forbids input into AI systems and clients are adding AI restrictions to contracts to protect their data from training LLM models a competitor could use.

Some are developing Closed AI versus Open AI systems that run locally storing data on their computers versus the cloud. The ad/PR agency network Publicis is investing in an internal AI built on proprietary data. When available this could be a great way to quickly get up to speed on a business and industry.

How much I’d outsource depends on my previous experience. If it was a new client or market I was unfamiliar with I may worry how much I’d Understand (Level of Thinking) or Remember (Level of Thinking) if AI did it all. In an in-person meeting could I recall or contextualize the information on the fly?

(3.) AI could help with some parts of idea generation.

I would outsource some brainstorming to AI, not idea formation, but AI could give me more material for ideas by Answering Questions (AI Function). Let’s say my client wants to sell water bottles to 25-34-year-olds. I could ask “What do 25-34-year-olds who work out look for in a water bottle?” and “What are current trends with 25-34-year-olds who work out?”

With these prompts, GPT via Copilot Created (Level of Thinking) a list of alternatives (AI capability). From the list, I put together a feature “one-hand operation” with a trend of “functional fitness.” Then I Asked for functional fitness examples. From that list, I put together a humorous image or video scene of a young woman easily sipping out of her Owala water bottle with one hand while swinging a heavy Kettlebell with the other. This formulated an original solution (Distinctive Human Skill).

Evaluating AI responses and knowing what to Ask (Level of Thinking) comes from knowledge of the client, problem, market, target, and trends to discern the best and identify AI hallucinations. I’d also use my domain expertise of what concepts are good Remembering (Level of Thinking) from my long-term memory of 17 years of creating ideas for clients (Distinctive Human Skill).

I wouldn’t have AI write ad copy or scripts directly. If it isn’t mostly Created by a human, it can’t be copyrighted to sell to your client or to protect them from use by competitors (Legal & Ethical Use). I’d also check my agency and client for specific restrictions on AI. Your Knowledge (Level of Thinking) of the client and humans (Distinctive Human Skill) is better at Creating (Level of Thinking) less generic more human copy and scripts.

(4.) AI could help in parts of social media campaign creation.

AI could help brainstorm content Answering (AI Function) “What kind of content do 25-34-year-olds who work out like to see on social media?” I’d Evaluate (Level of Thinking) AI’s best suggestions (Distinctive Human Skill). One was “personal anecdotes.” It reminded me of an insight I read in a Mintel report about unused home workout equipment.

I combine this with the text “Peloton brings the motivation of a community to your home.” This gave me a visual idea of unused home workout equipment. I could mockup the social idea using AI to Generate (AI Function) the image. I’d ask “Create an image of an unused, dusty, stationary bike in a basement with a lonely looking guy” (Level of Thinking). This image would help me sell the idea to the client.

Generated with AI (DALL-E 3 via Copilot Designer ∙ June 25, 2024 at 1:33 PM

After approval, my art director and I would consider Copyright issues. Using AI-created artwork for commercial use is unsettled due to sources for training data. Adobe Firefly claimed to be copyright-compliant, but revelations about training data may put Firefly users at legal risk. A trusted photographer may be best to ensure compliance (Legal & Ethical Use).

We’d also consider that the medium sends a message. Does an artificial human and image support Petoton’s message of genuine human connection? I’d weigh the risk of uncanny valley. When tech gets too close to human people get an unsettled feeling. That creepy feeling can be transferred into negative feelings about the brand. Toys R Us and Under Armour have faced backlash for using AI generated video in this way. Google sparked backlash over an ad where a dad had AI write a letter for his daughter because it had to be perfect (Legal & Ethical Use).

I can’t help thinking about the human impact. I’ve worked with many talented creators who add to my ideas with their expertise. If we all decide to use AI instead, photographers, models, illustrators, designers, and writers lose their livelihoods. Levi’s faced a backlash after announcing they’d use AI generated models (Legal & Ethical Use).

Creating content variations (AI Capabilities) is a tedious part of social media. AI could help Generate (AI Function) variations to fit different platforms. I could ask “Write this copy ‘Peloton brings the motivation and community of a gym to the convenience of your home’ in 10 different ways.” I could also tell it to write a specific length for each platform’s character limits. This type of AI outsourcing is happening. Meta Ad Manager is adding Text Variations and social media management software Hootsuite has OwlyWriter AI.

Going through this AI task exercise makes me hopeful.

Breaking down my job into tasks making intentional decisions on what to outsource to AI gives me hope. It reminds me of our human agency. It helps me visualize what Mollick describes in his book Co-Intelligence. Instead of replacing all human tasks, we can use AI as Centaur (division of tasks) and Cyborg (intertwined alternating subtasks).

Once you decide what tasks to outsource you need to know how to ask AI to get the best results. In my next post, I’ll dive deeper into prompt writing.

This Was Human Created Content!

Social Media Is Maturing: Has Your Strategy?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 2 Comments

I remember the days when we called digital media “new media.” My undergrad studies and half of my career were focused on traditional mass media. Our ad campaigns for marketing clients consisted of TV, print, radio, out-of-home, and traditional PR. New media was websites and banner ads.

Then more interactive social media came along and we began to experiment with social for clients. Social media was also called “emerging media” in a class I had in grad school. Strategy was all about getting more followers to brand pages for this new “free media.” ‘Like us on Facebook,” was the message and the goal was to increase brand page followers.

Social was still “new” and “emerging” when I began teaching social media marketing in 2011. Twelve years later it has changed quite a bit. I look a little older since that first social media course, and so does social media. I don’t know if social media is having a midlife crisis, but it is slowing down. The days of double-digit increases are behind it as new user growth has stalled.

Slowed growth of social media called for different strategies. Photo by Song Kaiyue: https://www.pexels.com/photo/slow-signage-2029478/

Facebook user growth averaged 15% from 2013 to 2017 but slowed to 8% from 2018 to 2021. In 2021 growth was just 4%. Except for the 2020 Pandemic lockdown, Twitter’s user growth has been under 10% in the past 8 years with 7 being under 5% and negative growth projected for this year. After years of hiring sprees, the world’s biggest tech companies have laid off 150,000 workers in recent months.

What Does This Mean For Social Media Strategy?

This doesn’t mean you ditch your current reliable social strategy to run out and buy a midlife crisis convertible. But you may need to reconsider your social media vehicles. Because a social platform made sense 10 or 5 years ago doesn’t mean it’s the best choice today. You may also need to expand your fleet of platforms.

Facebook is still the biggest, but your target audience may be spending more time elsewhere. More people are active on more platforms but have not increased their overall time with social media. Many thought Snapchat would lose a lot of users to Instagram when it added Snapchat-like features. Instagram did grow but Snapchat users remained consistent.

People didn’t leave one platform for the other, they divided their time between each. With social media maturity, people are adding new social platforms, but keeping their existing ones. Today, the average person uses 7 social platforms each month. TikTok is the lasted social media star, but people still take the other platforms out for drives.

Social Media Is Following The Product Life Cycle.

These signs indicate social media has reached the maturity stage of its product life cycle. In marketing, the product life cycle describes the four steps a product or service goes through once introduced to a market from introduction to growth, maturity, and decline. Marketing strategies change with the stage you’re in. When a product or service, like social media, reaches the maturity stage, growth slows, competition increases, and strategies must evolve.

The graph below shows how social strategy began with experimental budgets building early adopter brand followers. As social grew audiences became more mainstream, requiring social ads for crowded newsfeeds, engagement with user generated content, and measurement of ROI for sales. Now budgets are significant with expected returns. Strategies are complicated with multiple social platform use, social ads, UGC, influencer marketing, and social selling.

Social media has reached a maturity stage that requires different strategies and tactics. When planning social media strategy consider which stage your brand is in.

From 2012 to 2017 daily time spent using social media grew by 9% each year. In the last five years that growth stopped with an average increase of less than 1% a year. We’ve spent the same 2 ½ hours a day with social media since 2018. As people added social media platforms, they didn’t spend more time on social media.

This maturing puts more pressure on individual platforms to compete for existing users instead of new adopters of social media. It also increases competition between brands to reach that audience with less ad inventory leading to increased costs. Social media marketing use has stayed at 92% in the last three years, but social media ad spending rose 38% to $67.4 billion representing 24% of all online ad spending.

Mature Social Media Means Asking Different Questions.

For social media strategy the question to ask is no longer “What social media platform is my target audience on?” but “What social media platforms are my target audience most active in?” Monthly active users (MAUs) matter, but more context comes in considering other data such as daily active users (DAUs). The table below shows a comparison of top social media platforms globally, in the U.S., by generation, and frequency of use.

Depending on the data you emphasize top social platforms change. Facebook is top for global monthly active users, share of social platform visits in the U.S., and for Gen X (age 43-58). Yet for monthly active use by Gen Z (age 11-26), YouTube rises to the top for both monthly active users and daily active use.

Globally, social platforms like WhatsApp and WeChat show up on the top 6 list, but in the U.S. Twitter and Pinterest get more use. For Gen X, LinkedIn is on the list, but Snapchat and TikTok are not. Pinterest makes the top 6 list for Gen Z monthly active users, but Twitter is higher for daily active use.

The complications of the maturity stage are less daunting when you realize a more focused strategy means you don’t need to reach everyone on all social media platforms. Strategies must be more nuanced to be effective and efficient. Search for the target audience’s daily driver social apps.

Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, may work in some global markets, but Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter would be better in the U.S. Until you consider age. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram may be right for a Gen X target audience, but YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok may be a better choice for Gen Z. Social media strategy must be unique to the brand’s markets, objectives, and target audiences.

How have you noticed social media strategy changing in the last decade? If you need a tune up for your strategy a good place to start is conducting a social media audit. I explain how and include a template in my article “Social Media Not Meeting Expectations? Perform a Social Media Audit.”